Naruto: Great Clan Days
by Kenchi618
Summary: Senju Hashirama's dream to unify all of the warring clans of his country under one village remained just that; a dream. Generations later the ninja world still consists of pure clan affiliation. Enacting peace through understanding has fallen to the side. A catalyst is needed for any kind of change to occur, and it is all found in a little boy... for better or for worse. AU.
1. Welcome to My World

**Alright, I feel that this is a novel idea, and I'm excited as all hell to get it started. I was going to wait until I finished my story that's closest to completion before I started writing this, but I couldn't function until I got this out.**

**I enjoyed putting together what I've got so far for you so I hope you'll give it a shot and join along for the ride. This one's gonna be LONG.**

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. Kishimoto, as a college graduation present ante up and fork it over. Come on. All you've got to do is mail me a card attached to a docket of official forms transferring ownership to me. I'll sign them, get a witness when I do it, and bang. You'll have given a new graduate a great start on the world… because I'm seriously going to need it.

* * *

**Naruto: Great Clan Days**

The days of constant conflict between the ninja clans of the world never came to an end. The two legendary heads of the clans Senju and Uchiha, Hashirama and Madara, never came together to form the place that symbolized their dream of peace.

No, the ninja clans, Senju and Uchiha included, continued to loan their strength out to the individuals willing to pay them the most for their skills, constantly coming across each other during the course of their work and doing battle.

The perpetual warfare seemed as if it would never end, as Hashirama and Madara and their ambitions had been the closest examples to any kind of real peace being established in the world.

Days centuries past, one man travelled the world during a time of savage bloodshed and endless war, braving the dangerous lands as he discovered the truth of the chakra in every living being and eventually spreading his ideals of peace. All over the Elemental Nations, people took his message to heart, and this was the closest that the world had ever come to peace.

With his death came the end of his peaceful dream, but he always knew that it would be impossible for him to complete his goals of universal harmony in one lifetime regardless. Putting his dream into the hands of his youngest son and subsequently jading the eldest went down as the cardinal mistake in the legacy of the most powerful man to ever live, and set into motion events that affected the world for centuries.

The years dragged on. The Shinobi Sect broke into clans with different beliefs in the Rikudou Sennin's message, and the relations between these clans eventually devolved into nothing but combat between each other… nothing but victory and defeat. The world was a much different place now, even if a lot of it was similar to the days of the past.

The status quo was violence. Pointless, pointless violence.

And it was everywhere.

Something drastic had to happen if the world was ever going to change. Peace could never occur without understanding, and the only thing that the other clans understood about each other for certain was that they would sooner stick a knife in your back than shake your hand.

Achieving a lasting peace between all of the clans was not a dream that died with the friendship of Hashirama Senju and Uchiha Madara, but no other attempt had ever come as close. It didn't stop the dream from remaining in the minds of some, and it never stopped them from working to bring it to reality.

There was one thing that was oftentimes left out and neglected when it came to telling the stories of the Rikudou Sennin and his legendary feats that culminated in his great peace.

In order to form his beliefs and discover his personal truth that he shared with all others he had to travel the world in a time of vast turmoil. Braving the dangers of his time and growing as a man in a hostile land, he was forged physically and spiritually into a man of mythical proportions.

These things did not fall in line for him neatly, and his power and purpose did not come easily or overnight.

Legends even on that level had to begin somewhere. And usually their beginnings were far more humble than the stories ever figured to trace back to.

**Chapter 1: Welcome To My World**

* * *

The large rolling, forested hills that surrounded the village of the Uzumaki Clan played host to one rather disgruntled mother looking for her only son.

Around thirty years of age or so in her appearance, she had fair, lovely skin, long red hair that reached down past her waist, and pretty violet eyes. Her attire consisted of a sleeveless white blouse with a high collar underneath a long green dress. Not exactly attire befitting of a ninja. More like that of a housewife really.

"That boy…" She said to herself as she walked along in a huff, searching around for her beloved child, "How many times do I have to tell him to stop leaving the village? I don't know where he gets it from."

The least he could do was not leave alone. Even though the lands surrounding the village that was their home and the entire country of Uzu no Kuni in general was markedly safer than the nearby mainland of the Elemental Nations that they were to the east of, it was still dangerous for a little boy to be out there alone.

Ninja or not, he was still only ten. But that was only by proxy.

The only reason he was a ninja was because he was old enough to be deemed one by the society they lived in. Conscripted to be a shinobi of the Uzumaki Clan of which they were a part.

He hadn't been on any missions outside of the island. He had never fought a real battle against a shinobi or taken a life on purpose. None of the kids his age really had to before, fortunately.

This was an advantage of the fact that their nation was a small island, as well as due to the fact that they were allies of the feared Senju Clan.

They were too far out of the way to engage in battle with more often than not for the more aggressive clans in the world, and the fact that attacking them meant incurring the wrath of the most powerful clan of ninjas in the world kept them in relative peace. The Uzumaki Clan was definitely the clan that engaged in the least amount of direct wars against other clans, even though they took a high amount of missions.

Their life expectancy was much higher than other clans. Instead of the usual average expected age of thirty, many reached the ripe old age of fifty years old. Some even got beyond that.

But back with the Uzumaki Clan mother searching for her child.

Fortunately for her he wasn't that hard to track. The trees were marked with nicks and cuts and holes, probably from Naruto practicing with his kunai and shuriken as he wandered.

Eventually stopping as she was tired of doing all of the walking to look for her son, the mother just sighed and held her temple as a vein began to pulse on her head. A short growl gave way to a booming raise of her voice, "NARUTO YOU LITTLE SO-AND-SO, GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE RIGHT NOW! IF I ACTUALLY HAVE TO KEEP LOOKING FOR YOU I'M NOT COOKING THE YOU-KNOW-WHAT THAT YOU LIKE TONIGHT!"

Her voice reverberated through the woods and echoed into the open air for what seemed to be miles around, and all the while she simply stood there with her arms crossed underneath her bosom, tapping her sandaled foot on the ground impatiently as she counted down in her head from 120 seconds to be fair.

But eventually that time ticked down to the precious final seconds.

'Twelve, eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven, six-.'

She stopped counting when she heard a distant rustle of leaves and a constant chanting of, "Nonononononononono!"

Facing in the appropriate direction with her best scolding face, she put her hands on her hips well in advance as a little yellow-topped blur rushed into sight from the trees and slid to a dusty stop, bumping his face right into her stomach before bouncing off and falling down onto his backside.

A short little boy ten years of age, Naruto looked up at his mother with a wince after running into her. Spiky blond hair and bright blue eyes, he dressed himself in a black t-shirt with the red swirl mark Uzumaki Clan insignia right in the center and a pair of orange shorts.

He just stared up at his mother with a fearful wide-eyed expression and didn't move a muscle, as if he was sitting down in front of a predator that would only attack him if she felt his movement.

She didn't look it at first glance, but in her time doing missions, Naruto's mother had been one of the finest kunoichi that their clan had to their names. A woman with scary skills and a nasty temper to match; the 'Red Hot-Blooded Habanero' of the Uzumaki Clan. He'd seen this woman's performance firsthand sometimes on a handful of low-key missions that he ran with her around the island.

Naruto just called her mom though.

"Okay mom I'm here!" Naruto said, jumping back up to his feet in a panic as he clamored around in front of her, "You were just kidding about that whole dinner thing right? Right? We're still having the miso ramen with the pork in it right?"

"I don't know." Kushina said undecidedly, turning her eyes away from Naruto as she seemingly ignored all of his hopping around, "I mean you keep disobeying me whenever I say-…" She then slammed a hard fist down on top of Naruto's head to floor him, "-To stay in the goddamn village and stop running off all by yourself, 'ttebane!"

"Heh." Naruto grinned through the tears welling up in his eyes from the hit, "You did it again mom, with the dattebane."

"N-Nevermind that!" Kushina replied, though her cheeks did grow slightly rosy at being called on her verbal tic by her son, "Honestly Naruto, listen to your mother, or if you're really going to run off when I told you not to at least pick a better day for it!"

Preferably one that wouldn't result in him possibly being punished by her withholding the favorite meal of his that he knew in advance she was going to make that night.

"Where do you even go all of the time?" She asked again. Naruto didn't have some kind of super-secret training spot. He did his thing all over, never really in one place in particular.

"I'm just taking a walk sometimes."

A delicate, crimson eyebrow raised in skepticism at the youngster's excuse-making, "A walk where you use your weapons on the trees for target practice and come back all beaten up and smelly more often than not?"

"…I take _really_ enthusiastic walks?" Naruto ventured before realizing that Kushina wasn't budging on her stern stance, "Sorry mom." He said, still sitting on the forest floor with a big bump on his head from his mother's 'love tap', "I have a good reason! It's just… well, I don't know."

Kushina's expression softened as she heard Naruto struggle for an excuse as to why he kept running off farther and farther from the village on a whim. She knew why already, but she also knew that he'd never admit the reason out loud, even to her, 'Kami, he looks so much like you Minato. I wish you could see him.'

This time, Kushina's hand rested on Naruto's head and rubbed his hair.

"Come on Naruto, let's go home."

XxX

(Late Afternoon – Uzumaki Clan Village)

The village that was the Uzumaki Clan's main base of operations was rather large due to the amount of people that lived there. There were more civilians than ninjas due to the fact that only Uzumaki Clan members were shinobi, but the safety ensured by the clan that was the centerpiece of the settlement led it to be a rather sprawling society.

The main point of the village was a gigantic river that ran straight through the center that separated the settlement into two halves. One half was meant for the Uzumaki Clan, the other half was meant for the civilians and it was where most of the citizens and businesses were situated.

The Uzumaki Clan side was a guarded, traditional castle of sorts. There were several bridges to the other side that were always guarded by at least two ninjas per bridge. Only clan members could make their way over to this side of the village, but civilians could be invited after being cleared first.

A huge wall covered the riverbank to keep people from being able to swim across, and the castle itself was something of a small town. At the center of it was a hill that could overlook the whole village with a tall traditional mansion on it where the leader of the clan and overall village lived and worked.

This was where Naruto and Kushina lived as members of the clan, but even as they passed the guards of the bridge that let them in, Naruto could feel cold eyes on him and his mother. He'd grown used to it from the adults, and he already knew why. He was taunted by other kids for it constantly.

Kushina just gave them a chilling stare right back to deter them from looking at her child as if he were a pox cast on their people. To take Naruto's mind off of it, Kushina put her hand on his head and gave him a big grin while they walked on the paved clan streets on their way home, "So, did you just play in the woods all day or did you actually do anything useful today?"

"I didn't just play." Naruto pouted up at her. He did more than play. He was a ninja for crying out loud, "I was totally doing something useful! Since you won't teach me any cool fuuinjutsu, I've gotta do my own stuff."

"Baby, fuuinjutsu is dangerous." Kushina told him, "I taught you basic generic sealing, but if you can't even get the first three ninjutsu I taught you down, I can't responsibly teach you anything else. Now can you do the Bunshin no Jutsu?"

"…No." Naruto admitted begrudgingly, "But I can do the other two! My Henge is awesome, and I can definitely Kawarimi! I can stick to stuff with my feet and water-walk and all of that stuff!"

"That's good. Now get the Bunshin down and we'll talk."

"Reh…"

Naruto knew his mom had cool stuff in her repertoire. Word on the street was that she'd been very, very good; heralded as one of the most powerful Uzumaki kunoichi not just of her generation, but ever, with special chakra even for their clan.

He'd never seen her use it though, or any of her high-level techniques, even when she'd been training him. Then again, when they sparred he never did well enough to justify her using much more than what she'd already taught him how to do. It was just the mama lion playing with her cub from her perspective.

He hated the Bunshin though. What need would he ever have for a jutsu that didn't even make a real copy? So what if all of his looked dead and colorless? A Bunshin wouldn't fool anyone that was actually good anyway.

"Don't be in such a rush to grow up." Kushina told Naruto as they arrived at their quaint little one-story home, "Not too long ago, a kid like you would be on the battlefield right now."

"That sounds so cool." Naruto said with a grin as he imagined taking down hordes of enemies with jutsu that he didn't even know were possible yet.

His red-haired mother didn't share in his opinion, "No. Not cool." Kushina said, flicking him on the ear to make sure she had his attention, "We're lucky. Uzu no Kuni is out of the way. There isn't any other clan in this country for us to fight tooth and nail with. Not like on the mainland." All they really got were bandits from the other populated areas in Uzu no Kuni, and not many of them even knew how to use chakra.

"You've been?"

"Of course. It's terrible. Those battles are absolutely horrible." Kushina said, her eyes taking on something of a thousand-yard stare, "Adults butchering children even younger than you… kids that were put on the battlefield to fight for their clan's name." She then realized that she was getting to Naruto mentally a bit and shook her head, "I'm just saying, don't think that this is some kind of race. You've got plenty of time to get involved in those things, because once you actually do start you're probably going to wish you could have gone a bit longer without going to the mainland."

"On my missions?"

"On your missions. Now go play and I'll start dinner."

Kushina kissed Naruto on the forehead and went on inside of the house to start making food while he grumbled about the pretty public display of affection. Inside the house was fine. Not outside where people were watching. He wanted to look cool after all.

Either way, Naruto hopped along down the street until he came across an open field where he could see a mess of red-haired kids all playing a pretty fast-paced version of king of the hill.

There wasn't any use in trying to run on over there and get himself involved because they'd just try to keep him from playing, so he just sat down in the grass just outside of range and watched, 'Man, why is it always like this? It's not my fault.' Naruto said, pulling at a few locks of his own blond hair with a frown, 'Stupid old man… how could he leave mom like this?'

Ten years of age and he'd never seen his father one time. But Kushina was still head over heels in love with the man. Naruto didn't even know what he looked like, and for all he cared he hoped the bastard never came around.

It was because of him that Kushina wasn't a ninja that did missions anymore. Either because of his father or because of his presence.

His mother always used to tell him just what a powerful shinobi his father was. About how he was possibly one of the most powerful people in the world. She made him think that he was a superhero or something, but then Naruto started interacting with other members of the clan and heard many, many things.

A female ninja in the clan wedding an outside shinobi was against their customs. Naruto's father wasn't part of the clan, he was a wandering ninja from outside with no known ties to any clan, and with the fact that Kushina had no living family, there was no one to give their union blessing. She was sort of on the outs, and that made Naruto complete black-sheep material by inheritance.

Namikaze Minato. That name was known in the village because he was supposed to be an extremely dangerous man. This was Naruto's father.

If you saw the flash, that was your ass. Naruto had no idea what that meant, but he'd heard adult male clan members say it enough for it to stick with him. Also it rhymed, and anything that rhymed tended to be more memorable by default.

But a lot of good his dad's reputation as a fearsome shinobi did when he hadn't shown his face one time in Naruto's entire life. Still, Kushina swore by him, and repeatedly reassured Naruto that his father was a good man, and that he loved him dearly.

Naruto was beginning to doubt that, but for the sake of keeping Kushina in the highest spirits he could he never let her see him down in the mouth for too long about anything, including that.

His musings were brought to a close when he felt a set of knuckles grind into the side of his head for a noogie, "You left the village again didn't you?" A girl's voice asked as she let go once Naruto pushed her hands off, "I could sense you leave you know."

"Well goody for you!" Naruto bellowed before turning around to face his 'attacker', "Why do you gotta be so mean all the time Karin?"

Stupid Mind's Eye of the Kagura. She could sense anything for miles around, and it would only get stronger over time. Meanwhile he was begging for something above Bunshin-level from his mother.

Karin had red hair much like the vast majority of the rest of the Uzumaki Clan, hers being long and straight on the left and spiky and a bit messy on the right. She had red eyes and brown-framed glasses and wore a tan short-sleeved jacket with a black shirt underneath that exposed her stomach, short black shorts, and black stockings that went down to her black sandals.

"I'm not being mean. I'm toughening you up for ninja life." The young girl argued back in return, something that Naruto just rolled his eyes at. As if she were that much better than him. At least she was able to start learning the parts of her family's branch of ninjutsu though, so she had that over him, "I felt you run off, and then I felt Auntie Kushina go off to get you. So how much trouble are you in?"

"I'm not in trouble, 'ttebayo." Today. He meant that he wasn't in trouble today. Not really anyway.

"You're _always_ in trouble Naruto. If it's not with Auntie Kushina it's with my mom. If it's not with her it's with someone else." By now Naruto had turned back around to ignore her, something that she wasn't really alright with, "What's out there that you're always running off for anyway huh?"

"It's a secret." Naruto said with a big grin, "If nobody around here wants to play with me or train with me or whatever, I can do that too. Who needs 'em?"

Suddenly she sidled up to him with big doe eyes, trying to adjust her glasses to look cuter in order to persuade him, "You can tell your cousin right?" She wasn't pretty enough, or nice enough to him on a regular basis for something like that to work.

"Uh, but Karin, you're all my cousins and stuff."

"Okay, your favorite cousin then?"

"Um." How could he say that she wasn't his favorite cousin without incurring her wrath? Hell, most of them didn't even claim him, and she only really did it suited her, like right then. Luckily, he was saved from such a fate by the vey children that he'd been watching play just moments earlier.

"Hey Karin!" One boy shouted as the rest of the kids seemed to be done with their game, "Nagato-sama is on his way up to the mansion! Let's go see him before he makes it in!" He and the other kids with him spared a glance Naruto's way before ignoring his presence altogether. Once again, something he was already used to.

This was basically their way of letting them know that he wasn't invited.

Karin's eyes lit up at the thought of the village leader and being around his absurdly powerful chakra. Without a second thought she got up and ran over to them to join them, but before getting too far she turned around to Naruto one more time, "Are you going to leave the village again tomorrow like you do every day?"

Naruto just deadpanned a stare at her before smirking slightly, "…Maybe."

XxX

(The Next Day – Uzu no Kuni Countryside)

It was harder than normal to get out of the house today without getting caught by Kushina, but he was just too clever for his mom sometimes in his own humble opinion, and made it back outside of the village and far beyond, having been travelling through the trees fairly quickly for four hours.

By now he'd been doing this for just around two years or so and he had to think he'd been everywhere that there was for him to explore in the wilderness of Uzu no Kuni. He didn't go to other towns that lay around the coast and things, but when it came to the interior of the island nation where his village was situated he'd seen his share.

But nothing was more interesting than what he'd come across more or less a year ago; the place that he was off to on this very day.

Upon finding a deep ravine that was hidden away by a substantial thicket, Naruto grinned and began tying the large amount of rope he had managed to sneak out of the house with him around a very sturdy tree before securing the other side snugly around himself so that he could safely lower himself down the hundreds of feet into the dark.

'Good thing I brought lanterns and stuff.' Naruto thought to himself as he pulled a light from the bag on his back. It allowed him to look around the dank place and find when he was getting close to the bottom. He couldn't free himself from his makeshift harness quickly enough for his tastes, doing so hurriedly before running over to the source of a low rumbling noise in the chasm.

Jumping up onto a rock where he sat down, Naruto turned his light forward to scan ahead of him, "Hello? You there?" His light bounced forward and revealed a gigantic red-orange wall that seemed to be moving as if it were alive, "Oh come on. I can see you. How could I miss you? You're the size of a mountain."

A sigh that sounded like a great wind tearing through the crevice sounded out before a booming voice filled the great hole in the ground, **"Go away boy. You're useless to me. Far too weak to be any kind of a threat, far too small to eat and be worth anything more than a bug caught in my throat."**

Naruto frowned and jumped up from his seat before walking around the long end of the big furry orange wall, until that wall broke off into a long paw, and then a gigantic head with pointy ears, lined with black that trailed over to a closed eye.

The light was shined on the eye until it popped open, angry and red. Naruto involuntarily took a step back at the intimidating sight, but just smiled and walked closer after the initial shock wore off, "Hi Kurama. Sorry I haven't been here in a while. I was busy training before my mom could come looking for me."

**"****I don't care. You could have been gone for fifty years for all I care and the amount of attention I would have paid to your absence would have been the exact same as right now. Go away."**

"Why are you such a jerk fox? I know you're not that mean."

A dark chuckle came from the titanic creature that Naruto was conversing with as if it were a regular person, **"You keep thinking that. I can guarantee you you're the only human being in the world that would think that. Such a foolish runt."**

The novelty of talking to the biggest f'n fox that anyone else would ever see outweighed the constant insults and overall unpleasant attitude that Kurama had to life in general, at least for Naruto. His coolness factor more than balanced out the miserable bastard portion of his personality.

"I brought some leftovers from last night for lunch." Naruto said, pulling out a big bowl of ramen from his bag and taking the top off, "You want some? It's good. Miso ramen with servings of pork."

At that, Kurama's eye turned Naruto's way and stared at him for several seconds while the child didn't budge. That smell was just too much, **"…If you insist…"** As Naruto climbed up on one of Kurama's big paws, the fox lifted its head up off of the ground enough so that he could open his mouth for Naruto to pour it in.

While for Naruto it was a pretty big serving, to Kurama it was the equivalent of using an eye-dropper to hydrate a human tongue. But it wasn't about the portion, it was about the taste. It almost made him wish he were smaller so that he could enjoy it better.

"I never saw a fox that liked ramen before." Naruto commented, stashing the bowl back into his bag and pulling out his own bowl for personal consumption.

**"****You need some variety away from eating people every now and then."** Kurama joked blackly as he settled back into his paws as a pillow to rest on, **"Eventually the taste just blends together. I like the vitamin-D deficient bodies better. Less crunch, easier to chew."**

Naruto didn't know how serious he was about that statement so he just grinned uncomfortably and broke apart his chopsticks to begin eating his own lunch, "T-That's great."

Nobody knew about the presence of Kurama on Uzu no Kuni with the exception of Naruto. And that was just because Naruto randomly came across him after falling into the ravine by accident one day.

Falling to his death after being chased into a hidden pitfall by a massive bear, Naruto was saved by way of his landing on a bed of nine gigantic tails. Naruto after getting over his initial shock innocently asked Kurama if he was stuck. Kurama almost felt the need to show Naruto just how trapped he was, but instead of causing a fatal cave in that would destroy his temporary den, Kurama just told Naruto that he liked it there and not to tell anyone about him until he left or he'd destroy his village.

That was a year ago. And ever since then he had come back to find Kurama still there, just sleeping the days away until he dropped in to wake him up and hang out with him.

Was it a shame that Naruto found a monster fox more willing to spend time with him than other human kids his age _in his own clan_? Probably.

"So Kurama, I was wondering, do you have a dad?"

**"****Yes, because there's more than one gigantic fox running around the world." **Sarcasm aside, there was no real reason to be so nasty to the kid. It was just a question, and for a human he wasn't afraid of him for what he was. That was strange. Strange enough to be intriguing, **"Father wouldn't be the correct term. I had a creator."**

"So he wasn't around for you?" Naruto could relate if that were indeed the case. All he could relate Minato to being was the guy that banged his mom and left her with the baggage. Not in so crude a way of speaking, but more or less such, "The whole big talking fox thing was a bit weird for him huh?"

**"****No, the Sage was around quite often." **Kurama recalled, swishing his tails around in a bored manner, **"He had to be to keep the rest of us in line I imagine."** It was funny to remember the days back when he was a young biju. Good times.

Naruto stared at his inhuman acquaintance in awe, "So there _are _more big, giant foxes out there?"

**"****No dumbass."** Kurama said, using his tails to count off his brothers and sisters,** "There's a giant tanuki, a giant cat, a giant turtle… thing, a giant monkey, a giant horse… a giant dolphin thing."** What the hell was Kokuou supposed to be? He didn't even know, **"A giant slug, a giant beetle, and a giant ox/octopus thing."**

"…Your family is weird Kurama."

**"****I know. Especially since our creator is human. The most sickeningly powerful human that ever walked the face of the planet."** And one of the very few humans in his long, long life that he'd ever respected,** 'Why am I carrying on a conversation with a brat of a human?'**

Possibly because he couldn't sense any negative emotions from the boy directed at him whatsoever. It was how Naruto managed to literally drop in on him to begin with when they'd first met. He still had darkness of course. There was a deep pit of loneliness in the center of Naruto that no amount of loud talking and smiling could hide from Kurama's ability to feel it out.

"Let me just get a nap for a bit." Naruto said with a yawn, still resting on Kurama's paw, "I've got to start going back home soon or Mom's gonna kill me this time. This is a long way out from the village."

Kurama just snorted hot air through his nose and shut his own eyes as Naruto did the same, **"Whatever. If I shift around in my sleep and crush you under my chin it's your fault."**

"You'd feel bad and cry."

**"****I'd lick you off of my paw and go back to sleep."**

"Heh, gross."

XxX

(Uzumaki Clan Village – Clan Grounds)

"I might kill him this time." Kushina muttered to herself as she took down the dried laundry from their backyard and quickly folded it on the spot, "I seriously might. He couldn't wait a week before running off again? I've seen puppies that are easier to train."

"Naruto troubles again Kushina?"

"What's it to you pal?" Kushina barked, not even turning back around to face the calm voice that had remarked about her son, "If he didn't break anything, fight your kid, or do anything that's actually bad I don't want to hear you complain about him to me. Go do it to someone else like everybody else."

"Do you really think the village leader would complain about your kid behind your back? Especially when he's an old friend of yours?"

Kushina stopped folding clothes and turned around with a grin to see a familiar face sitting on the low-lying roof. A man with almost pale skin and chin-length red hair that covered his eyes, he wore traditional plated clan armor over black formal attire with long sleeves that covered his hands.

He just sat there smiling and waiting for her to react somehow, which she did by walking over, hands on her hips as she looked up at him, "Why Nagato-sama. You don't have anything better to do than come pick on little old me?"

Dropping down from his seat on the roof, Nagato landed with a bit of a stumble, chuckling sheepishly at not looking very cool, "I call it checking in." He said, getting a big hug from the spirited mother, "Good to see you Kushi… it's been a while. I wanted to stop in before the Senju Clan meeting in about a week. No idea when else I'd have the free time."

"Being clan leader is a tireless job after all." Kushina commented glibly, "I don't really get much to do with clan affairs anymore as you know, so it's nice to know sometimes that I've got a friend up there somewhere. But I guess it does get lonely up at the top for a 'God' after all."

"Don't you start calling me that now too." Nagato complained, revealing behind his red bangs a pair of strange purple eyes with ring ripple patterns in them, "I actually like the fact that someone around doesn't always consider the Rinnegan first when they think of me."

"Because when I think about Nagato, I can't help but think back to the crybaby you used to be. Sticking those fancy eyes in your head all of a sudden can't make me forget that." Back before Nagato had somehow awakened the Rinnegan, he and Kushina had been friends.

Back then he didn't have many of them because of his personality, but after it became known during his early teen years that he had the Rinnegan things changed popularity-wise for him, and to his credit he grew into it to the point where when it came time to select a new clan head he was chosen despite being under thirty at the time, mostly due to the deterrent that the threat of the Rinnegan posed for potential enemies of the Uzumaki Clan.

Even so, even with people falling all over them to get on the good side of the man that had inherited the legendary eyes of the Rikudou Sennin, Kushina wasn't one of them and still treated him like regular old Nagato, something that he actually appreciated to keep him honest.

By the time he became clan head a few years back Kushina had already fallen out of favor for having Naruto with a roaming, clanless ninja, so it wasn't as if she cared about making more people angry. Thus she spoke on what she felt about what she was privy to with clan activities, and Nagato liked to use her as a sounding board of sorts for a completely unbiased opinion that wouldn't suck up to him.

That, and he'd known her for his entire life and had seen how beautiful she'd become. She'd been a great active ninja. She probably still was. And she was a close friend of his.

"So." Nagato said, looking around as the lovely female redhead got back to working on the laundry, "Where's your firstborn?"

Kushina chuckled darkly at the topic of Naruto being brought back up, "Take a guess."

Powerful as he was, Nagato felt the need to take a step back for safety just in case Kushina's temper wasn't level, "…Ran off again?"

"Of course. It's his thing apparently." As annoyed by it as she sounded before she sighed and a melancholy look came to her eyes, "Not that I can really blame him for not wanting to be around here with the way things are for him. It's the only thing I regret about being with Minato; what it's done to Naruto just for being born." A pretty big regret even if it was the only one she had.

Most of the Uzumaki Clan didn't claim Naruto as one of them because of the nature of his birth. Even though Kushina and Minato were married at the time of conception and birth, Naruto was perceived as a bastard. The fact that he didn't look like a single one of them didn't help either. It just drove the stake in further.

"You could remarry back into the clan. That would solve most of the hate." Nagato presented to Kushina as an option, "If you married someone with enough pull they could even shield Naruto from the way others treat him." For some reason it sounded like he was talking about himself, even if he didn't say it aloud, "It'd be better than it is now."

"I'm not divorcing Minato."

"He could be dead. You haven't seen him in how many years?"

"You know better." Kushina said with a ghost of a smile on her lovely face and a shake of her head, "Shame on you."

"Sorry, sorry. It's just that you know what it's like on the mainland. If it wasn't for-."

Kushina cut him off and explained everything he was about to say, "I know, I know. If it weren't for the Senju, the fact that we're our own island nation, and the fact that you having the Rinnegan scares the hell out of most of the superstitious clans out there we'd be up to our necks in enemies."

Fuuinjutsu was that dangerous of an art to specialize in, and the Uzumaki Clan was the best at it in the entire world. It was like they could speak their own language with the arrays, the hand-seals, and the effects. Even the children were fairly decent at it.

That made a lot of people afraid, for many reasons. Most prominent of them being that fuuinjutsu was the only known way to defend in earnest against the nine forces of nature in their world that went by the collective name of the biju, none of whom had been seen attacking in quite some time. Years and years.

The Uzumaki Clan had cornered the market so to speak on the best fuuinjutsu available. They were always coming up with more as well. And that was something that everyone wanted to keep an eye on. Every advantage available was more than welcome.

It was a wild world out there.

The conversation tapered off as Nagato had figured he'd overstepped his bounds even as village leader. Kushina was a married woman and was incredibly faithful even though not a single person had seen Namikaze Minato in Uzu no Kuni in ten years. It wasn't like he was welcome amongst their clan anyway. He was a vagrant ninja and everyone knew it. No clan, no pull in the world. The only thing about him was that he was apparently strong. Extremely strong.

Hell, the only reason most people in the village didn't think of him as a myth was because Naruto was physical proof of his bloodline. Namikaze Minato; the ninja so strong that his own physical traits managed to overpower the dominant physical traits of the Uzumaki Clan in his offspring.

It didn't need to be brought up to his wife to piss her off. Enough idiots had done that through the earlier years of their relationship and even after she'd had Naruto and Minato had been more or less subsequently blackballed from returning.

People had rather short memories as to how much of a scary badass someone could be when they were a new mother and hadn't been in the field for years just to raise her son and make sure he was properly cared for.

And Nagato loved her. But he could not have her. She was married with a son, and the son was a constant reminder of the man that took Kushina off the market before he was confident enough in himself as a ninja and a man to approach her as anything more than a friend. Even when he wasn't anywhere near them the cloud of Namikaze Minato hung over the village.

"I just know that if Naruto could meet Minato it would change his life, the way it changed mine. Ours." Kushina said, looking off at the sunset, "One day he will."

Every time the topic of Minato was brought up between Nagato and Kushina, hearing the way she spoke of him made his heart hurt. That was the way he wished that she would speak of him. In a better world, he would have been the one that she fell for. Naruto would be his son instead.

So many things would be different.

XxX

(With Naruto – Uzu no Kuni Countryside – Hidden Ravine)

Naruto couldn't tell the passing of time down in the dark ravine for two reasons. One, there was no way he could see the position of the sun because of the cave walls and the trees that concealed the top of the ravine. The second reason was because he was dead asleep in the paw of a walking natural disaster that was also asleep.

If he was awake, he'd be aware of the fact that the sun was going down, and he'd be freaking out because by the time he got home Kushina would be spitting fire at him she'd be so angry.

Fortunately he didn't have to worry about such things while sleeping, and he didn't seem like he'd be waking up anytime soon. Neither did Kurama.

Until one gigantic red eye snapped open upon the feeling of a disturbance in the air, just in time to catch sight of a swirling vortex appearing in the air at the back end of the ravine. From within it, a man appeared attired in a long, hooded cloak with an orange and black mask covering his face, "The Kyuubi no Yoko. The strongest of the nine biju."

Unlike with Naruto, Kurama sensed nothing but malice and ill intent from this man, and he stood up suddenly, prepared to kill the intruder. Who was this? He didn't feel anything at all one second and the next he was right on him.

Naruto fell off of Kurama's paw when he stood up and fell down onto the ground in a heap, "Wah! W-What? Why'd that happen? Kurama why'd you-?" He noticed that there was something wrong when he saw Kurama standing defensively, glaring and growling openly at something at the other end of the cave, "Who is that?"

**"****You've come to the wrong place human." **Kurama said threateningly, his booming voice bouncing off of every wall with menace, **"I'll give you one chance to leave the way you came."**

"Or else what?" The masked man asked, sounding amused at Kurama's aggression.

**"****Or else I'll show you a little something I like to call 'fuck everything in that general direction'."**

"You're aware that a Bijudama down here would cause an earthquake that would devastate this island aren't you?"

**"****Oh, I'm sorry. You're under the impression that I give a damn!"** With that, Kurama lashed out with several of his positively massive tails, impaling into the walls and pulverizing rock formations sticking out of the ground while the strange man seemed fast enough to dodge them all, **'What? It would take more than speed to avoid all of my tails.'** It was like he knew the direction they'd be coming from.

The masked man blurred through hand-seals and produced an offensive jutsu of his own to do battle with the monster before him, "Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu (Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu)!" Somehow from behind his mask he produced a mammoth fireball half the size of Kurama's head, but the deadly target of his choice merely swiped it out of existence with a paw.

**"Die for me now."** Kurama demanded as utilized his paw with the same swipe that destroyed the fireball to smash into the masked man, dragging the clawed appendage through the ground hard and fast enough to cause a miniature earthquake that brought large portions of the ravine down around him.

Something was wrong though, as Kurama felt a malevolent presence open up above him. From in the air over his head, the mysterious attacker dropped from the same kind of portal that he'd originally appeared from, 'He _is_ holding back. This is perfect.'

Trying for another quick tailed assault, Kurama sent forth the last two of his tails only for the strange man to maneuver his body through them while falling before landing on one and running up the length of it.

Reaching Kurama's body itself, he made eye contact with the gargantuan fox through the eyeholes of his mask, "How about a blast from the past Kyuubi!"

Kurama couldn't see it from a distance, but once his attacker got close enough to look him in the eye and he saw the imprint of red eyes with three tomoe patterns in them form in his mind he did his best to shake off the control, thrashing about wildly into the walls, crashing harshly and bringing down chunks of rock able to crush a man, **'No! Sharingan! That damned eye!'**

Naruto had long since become aware enough of what was going on to know that there was some serious danger going on around him. Dodging rocks, Naruto couldn't help but feel serious concern for Kurama. His roars as he tried to keep the genjutsu from taking hold, "Kurama!" Naruto turned his head and caught sight of the sinister culprit that was hurting the fox, "What are you doing?"

"Oh that's adorable." The masked man said in regards to Naruto as he saw the young Uzumaki Clan member storming right for him, dodging rocks for dear life as he tried to get close enough to fight, "You're worried about a monster that wouldn't hesitate to snuff you out in an instant. But let me tell you a secret kid."

It was brave for Naruto to try and fight him, but had he been paying attention? He'd just subdued a gigantic fox with the power to tear landscapes asunder. Did he really think anything he could do would hurt him?

Nevertheless, Naruto ran up the side of a nearby rock spire before leaping right off of it at his new enemy, unsealing a fuuma shuriken that he unfolded and held by the center ring around his wrist, "Leave him alone or I'll-!" His threat died in his throat when his opponent didn't budge, and the swing of his weapon passed right through him as if he were a specter.

He never felt the subsequent blow from the masked man that sank itself right into his belly, holding him up off of the ground just by the fist. Naruto choked and sputtered as his shuriken clanged to the ground.

The masked man grabbed Naruto by the collar of his shirt and held him up to whisper in his ear, "The secret is, it's not the monsters the size of a mountain that you should be scared of. It's the monsters that look like me or you that are the scariest of all." By now Kurama had been subdued by whatever genjutsu had been cast upon him, rendering him docile, and the mysterious attacker then proceeded to do the exact same thing to Naruto, "You know, you look like someone I've met before."

The kid looked just like Namikaze Minato. How funny would it be for him to use the son of that man to kick off his plans and set everything into motion. He was going to kidnap a child of the Uzumaki Clan later, but this saved him risking Kurama attacking the village to obtain a proper vessel. Naruto's mere presence in the ravine also caused Kurama to hold back, making the battle easier than the masked man had anticipated.

Besides, Naruto's chakra was abundant and powerful for a small boy. Even by Uzumaki standards. He was perfect. Yes, Naruto was going to help him save that rotting cesspool of a world that the ninja in general had turned it into.

"Let me tell you something else while you're being such a good boy. Something I want you to remember as everything falls apart around you." The masked man said as he walked down the side of his elevated position, "All warfare since the beginning of the Shinobi Sect is based on deception. For years, every fool clan bastardizing the will of the Rikudou Sennin with their own machinations has made the world a battlefield. Brothers, sons, sisters, daughters, wives, mothers, fathers, husbands… everyone spills their blood for their selfish causes, and they have for centuries."

After getting down from his rocky perch, the masked ninja walked over to Kurama and dropped Naruto in a heap right at the yoked biju's feet before rolling up his shirt enough to expose his navel. With a few hand-seals, he had summoned a ritualistic alter with Naruto at the center of it.

"The deceit of conflict cuts both ways." The masked man continued to the catatonic boy as he went through a long, careful chain of hand-seals, "The bigger the lie, the more likely people will believe it. People will call for vengeance, and the lie spreads like a wildfire. The fire builds, devouring everything in its path. Our enemies all believe that they alone dictate the course of history."

As he finished his chain of seals, a glow overtook all of Kurama's body and Naruto's as well as the man placed his hand on his stomach and finished his jutsu, bathing the entire ravine in a blinding light.

"…And all it takes is the will of a single man."

XxX

"NARUTO YOU'RE IN SO MUCH TROUBLE!"

What a way to start a morning.

Awakening with a start, Naruto rocketed out of his bed and bounced off of the ceiling before falling onto the floor, Kushina standing over him in a white yukata, much to his confusion, "Mom?"

"Yeah, your mother." Kushina said flatly before beginning to put on a display of waterworks with a sniffle, "The woman that brought you into this world and nurtured you lovingly. Gave to you of herself with all of her heart, and yet day after day you continue to disobey even the simplest request when all she wants is for her son to be safe and a splendid shinobi-!"

Naruto hopped back up and hugged her tightly, "Mom I'm so sorry, I didn't want to be gone so long you were worried! I wanted to come back sooner yesterday but I fell asleep and I lost track of time and-." Got beaten up by some guy in a mask that did something to make Kurama freak out.

Wait a minute, did that shit actually happen or was that a dream? And how did he even get home? He didn't remember walking, but he still had the feeling in his legs that he'd have after he trekked home from a venture to Kurama's temporary den.

His stomach hurt like hell too now that he was awake enough to feel it. But it wasn't a sick, puky kind of hurt or a physical one. It was like a burning feeling, like something being steadily seared into his being, if there was a way that someone could know what that felt like.

Apparently Naruto cutting off the explanation of his own train of events from last night was enough for Kushina to believe she'd gotten the gist of what had happened. She'd heard it more than a few times before already, "I only tell you to do things that I do because I love you Naruto." She said as she ran a hand through his hair.

"I know." Naruto mumbled into her yukata, "I'll try. I don't want to do it to make you mad. It's just… I don't know." He said in a near repeat of his conversation with her from the day before.

Kushina just smiled down at him and pulled away to exit his room, "You don't have to say if you don't want, but remember that you can tell me anything. No matter what happens. No matter how old you get or how strong you become you'll still be my baby. And I'll still be able to kick your ass no matter what, so be good." She walked down the hall and shouted something back at him, "Make sure you wash your face before breakfast! You're filthy! The dirt on your face looks like whiskers!"

Naruto grinned at her until she vanished from sight in the doorway. Once he was certain that she was gone he held his stomach with a cringe and sat down on his bed, looking out at the early morning sun. Kushina loved making sure he was up no later than six-thirty every morning, and he had no idea what time he'd gotten back last night.

Was it a dream? He got beaten up. Losing a fight like that should have meant death. But he was alive, with an entire body that burned like fire on the inside, but he was okay. At least he figured he was okay.

If it was real then what happened to the guy? What happened to him that he was able to walk out of there and not remember it? What happened to Kurama?

Naruto looked at his bag on the floor and then to his own doorway before making a decision. Sorry Kushina. He'd be home quick this time, "…I've got to go back."

XxX

Outside, walking the Uzumaki Clan streets trying to get herself to wake up properly for the day, Karin rubbed at her eyes underneath her glasses before sighing at the first specs of light peeking over the horizon, "Why can't the day start at noon or something? The sun doesn't even want to be up right now."

As she walked she saw a little black and orange figure dart over the fence to his house and head off in a hurry to wherever he was planning on going so early in the morning.

"Naruto." Karin said a bit distastefully. Other kids liked to ignore him and even she ostracized him from time to time to fit in with the rest, but there was a reason she never tried to follow him despite being able to sense him. She just wasn't fast enough to keep up with him. When it came to training she hated it except for when it came to using the Mind's Eye of the Kagura. She loved that jutsu.

Speaking of which, she might as well get in a bit of practice by locking in on Naruto's chakra signature. She was used to how it felt so it couldn't have been that hard.

And it wasn't. But she wasn't expecting to get the equivalent of feedback overload in her brain due to being unprepared for the sheer amount of chakra that was inside of his body. That definitely hadn't been there yesterday, 'That's such strong chakra!' And Kami it was unstable.

So scary.

She had to tell someone, because something was wrong. There was something infinitely more powerful than Naruto inside of his body. There was something sealed in there.

Something strong. Something bad.

XxX

(Later that Day – Uzu no Kuni Countryside – Hidden Ravine)

Naruto knew the way back to Kurama's den by heart, and his body moved on autopilot, using every precious brain cell to try and dredge up a decent recollection of what happened last night.

He was hanging out with Kurama. He went to sleep. He woke up and fell off of Kurama's paw. Weird guy in freaky full mask attacked Kurama, and instead of being smushed or eaten he did something to mess with his head. Naruto tried to fight him, and got flattened. He made eye contact with the guy, and then he went dark.

That didn't explain anything.

As he came back to the ravine, Naruto got on his hands and knees at the edge and looked down into the dark as if he could see with no light down there.

"Kurama!" Naruto yelled down the crevice, letting his voice echo until nothing of it remained. He just repeated himself hoping to get some kind of answer, "Kurama!"

He tried again time and time again, but got no response until he found himself pulled up by the back of his shirt and turned around in the air to face the familiar visage of Kushina, who didn't seem surprised but still rather perturbed nonetheless.

"Yeah, I followed you today." Kushina said, stating the obvious to break the ice, "I didn't think you could hustle like that though. You made pretty good time for coming this far into the backcountry."

"Uh… thanks?"

"You're welcome." Kushina's smile was downright pleasant, but Naruto fell into what he considered to be an awkward silence as he remained off of the ground in his mother's grasp, at least until she felt her smile grow strained and she began slinging him around in a circle by his shirt, "What the hell is a Kurama, why the hell is it down a ravine, and is this where you've been going everyday!?"

A motion sick Naruto didn't know which question to answer first, "Wauwauwauwau! Mom stop!" Kushina's temper had officially reached the boiling point with him and his constant sneaking away from the village.

"And another thing! Why is your face still dirty? I saw you go into the bathroom before you tried to sneak out!"

"I washed up and changed clothes after I took a leak! I'm not dirty!"

"Then what's with the smudges on your cheeks you sneaky smartass?"

"What smudges?"

Kushina stopped swinging Naruto and set him down to observe his face up close, clutching his cheeks to look at the tanned flesh and the three horizontal lines on each cheek. Maternal instinct kicked in and Kushina licked at her own thumb before trying to stubbornly rub the marks off, ignoring Naruto's complaints to how it was gross.

She did so to no avail. They stayed on as if they were parts of his actual skin.

After trying and failing time and time again, Kushina just stared at Naruto's face, "…They're real." She said softly, confusing Naruto as it showed on his face, "Naruto… where did you get those marks?"

Naruto hadn't seen any marks, even when he'd washed up that morning. He had been in such a hurry he hadn't bothered to give himself anything more than a passing glance in the mirror, "What marks?" Naruto asked, "Mom, you're freaking me out. What marks?"

She just shook her head and looked over his shoulder at the ravine behind him, "Naruto, what have you been doing in this place? What did you do last night?" She was terrified. People didn't just get markings like that. There were clan markings, but the Uzumaki didn't have any.

Markings like that also meant other things. Terrible things. She needed to hear something from Naruto. Something positive. Something to set her mind at ease, because looking at the marks that had popped up on his skin overnight had her fearing the worst in the pit of her stomach.

"I… I don't know."

And this time when he said this, it wasn't because he was just trying to hide how he really felt from his mother. Naruto honestly had no idea what had transpired the night before. But whatever had happened after the man in the mask knocked him out put those marks on his cheeks, put that feeling in his body, and was making Kushina tear up right in front of his eyes.

Damn that masked man. What did he do to him? What did he do to Kurama?

XxX

(Uzumaki Clan Village – Clan Leader Mansion)

A leader's work was never done for Nagato. After stepping into the office that morning he had to deal with all sorts of requests. Civilian merchants in town wanted to request the services of the clan to protect them while they went out to obtain goods from the mainland. There were even a good number of requests from clients on the mainland that had yet to be sorted and given a price.

As far as things went, Uzu no Kuni was the closest thing to ninja paradise that one could find in the world today. The status quo was good to their clan. They weren't the strongest or most feared, but they didn't have to be the way that things were for them.

A knock came at the door and Nagato looked up to respond, "Come in."

After being prompted, a red-haired woman, his secretary/bodyguard, opened the door and poked her head in, "You've got someone here to see you Nagato-sama. One of the clan children, her name is Karin."

"Send her on in." The Rinnegan possessor said with an amicable smile as the nervous little girl was ushered in, "What can I do for you today Karin-chan? I doubt your parents want you trying your hand at a mission yet." He joked… somewhat. She was definitely old enough to take missions, though whether she was talented enough was another thing entirely.

The nerves at standing before the most powerful Uzumaki Clan ninja possibly ever started catching up to Karin who had never spoken to Nagato before, "W-Well Nagato-sama, um it's about another kid. Naruto."

Nagato frowned at the topic. He may not have been fond of Naruto for lineage reasons, but people trying to find some excuse to complain about him was annoying. The last thing anyone needed was for the children to fall into that habit too. It would make it extremely difficult for Naruto to work with them when the time came, "If you're having a problem with Naruto I'm sure it's something that two clan ninja such as yourselves can work out."

"No it's not that. There's something wrong with Naruto's chakra." Karin said, wringing her jacket with her hands, "It feels weird. I don't know how to explain it. It's like there's something else sealed inside of him. Whatever it is, it doesn't feel human."

The mood then turned gravely serious. This was not the sort of thing that was to be joked about, "How 'not human' did it feel?"

"It's the scariest chakra I've ever sensed in my life." Karin admitted, walking closer to the desk of the village leader, "I thought I messed up and turned off my jutsu for a second before I tried it again and it was the exact same."

Nagato got up and walked around the desk before setting his hands on Karin's shoulders and giving her a reassuring smile, "Thank you for telling me this. It's a very important thing that you did." Karin blushed at the attention and nodded as Nagato ushered her out, "Go on home for now."

After seeing her out and shutting the door behind him, Nagato sat back down at his desk and placed his hands on his temple, pushing his hair around his face. This was not good. This was not good at all.

If Karin was right, if Naruto had two sources of chakra and one of them wasn't human there was a chance that somehow the ultimate taboo of the shinobi world had been inexplicably committed.

A jinchuuriki had been created.

* * *

**Alright. No rest for the weary. We're going to try ****_this one_**** now. I haven't read any stories with this kind of a premise… I think. But then again I haven't tried to really seek out anything to read in a while so it might have been done like this before. I don't know.**

**A story with the setting timeline-wise of the actual story more or less, but the hidden villages were never set up and created. Gonna be AWESOME!**

**…****Hopefully.**

**Gonna be long too.**

**Whatever. Thanks for reading. Kenchi out.**


	2. No Place Like Home

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. It's a beautiful sunshiny day… at least where I am. So go ahead and waste a chunk of it by sitting here and reading this story. Go on! You know you want to!

* * *

_To anyone with a copy of this to read,_

_I have a lot of trouble with this whole 'memoir' thing. And it's not just the writing part that gets me, though I'm not really a fan of that either. Definitely not enough to write a whole gigantic book by choice._

_But here's the thing. People tell me that it's important to leave some kind of firsthand record of the things that happened in my life and my friends' lives, so that later on when we're all dead people don't backtrack and make the same mistakes we did or the people before us did to put us in our situations. But here's the thing I'm having trouble with._

_How in the hell can you tell people generations from now a story to take seriously and learn from if they don't think big parts of it are real?_

_I don't know, but that's what happened once already. I think a lot of what the Sage of Six Paths' original message or whatever it was that he put out there got lost in translation over the centuries, especially if nobody ever wrote it down. You never see any physical record of anyone talking about it. Every legend about him is spread through word of mouth, and that just isn't going to do. _

_The stuff he did was _so_ outrageous in hindsight that people who didn't live through it themselves back then couldn't take it as the 100% truth. Anything that went with his message, along with the things he actually did got diluted by the times. People thought that the storytellers were just overselling him. And it didn't help that nobody had any idea where he came from, how he discovered chakra, or any of that. No background. No one ever talked about the kind of guy he was, or what he was like as a person. He was like some ideal more than a man._

_Nobody could relate and put themselves and their own feelings into it somehow, so they didn't believe in things all the way and started twisting the stories to the way they liked it. So I guess that's why people keep telling me that I've got to write this myself, and I totally get it. I wouldn't want that to happen to this._

_Because I still honestly can't believe most of the stuff that actually happened to me, and I lived it! So I know full well that no one else two hundred years from now or whatever is going to take this bullshit seriously unless I write it myself._

_I'd rather Ero-sennin do it since he's an actual author, but that's not going to happen, so here's what I've got. Believe it or not I'll do my best, and if you weren't there you just can't imagine._

_Uzumaki Naruto – Foreword to 'End of the Clan War Era Memoirs'_

**Chapter 2: No Place Like Home**

* * *

Kushina was panicking in her mind. She'd had Naruto strip to his boxers in the forest and had him generate chakra so that she could look for the anomaly that she'd expected to find on his body, and lo and behold she found it situated perfectly around his navel.

A seal that glowed from black to red every few seconds as if it were throbbing. It was so sloppy. Clearly intended to be used for the short-term in how it was set up. A Shishou Fuuin (Four Symbols Seal). The pulsing color let her know that whatever the seal was holding back wouldn't be held back for long.

What a sloppy job. Whatever was sealed inside of Naruto now was far too strong for a Four Symbols Seal.

Luckily for Naruto, his mother was there to come to the rescue.

Diligently working on the spot, Kushina managed to improve and fortify the seal, at least doubling it in strength by merely doubling up on it. It was a simple fix, but that was the secret to what made Kushina's sealing style so effective compared to others. She was able to innovate using simple methods instead of trying to get needlessly complicated.

After a bit of field work that caused her to roll back her sleeves to get the job done, Kushina had managed to innovate a new seal on the spot. A mother's love was a powerful thing indeed.

"Your mom is the most awesome seal artist in Uzu no Kuni." Kushina said, temporarily pleased with her work as she wiped some sweat from her brow and stood back to observe her work. The seal was no longer throbbing in colors and was now a solid, calm black, now taking the form of a swirl mark right on his belly with two array arches above and below that had four branches each, "Hakke no Fuuin Shiki (Eight Trigrams Sealing Style). This is a really special seal Naruto."

"You know how it works?" Naruto asked, looking down at the new artwork on his stomach as he stood up off of the ceremonial throne that Kushina had somehow summoned so that she could properly perform the jutsu she needed to alter his seal.

"Of course I do, I created it after all!" Kushina declared before pointing at the top array arch and then the bottom, "It's a combination of a Shishou Fuuin, meant to seal any target into something else."

"I know what the Shishou Fuuin does mom." And now maybe he could begin trying to learn it himself since he'd seen it up close and personal on himself. Maybe replicate it if he was good enough? Poking at the seal got his hand swatted, "Ow!"

"Shh! Listen." Kushina ordered to stop Naruto from messing around, "Now this one is different. Stronger. There's still something sealed away in you, but do you see this?"

The little yellow-haired boy nodded as he watched her point out the slight little space between two arcing arrays around the swirl mark over his navel, "What is it?"

"That allows whatever's chakra is inside of you to mix more evenly with yours, that way it won't hurt you as much and isn't as unstable." Kushina said, trying to keep things simplified, "You were getting an overloaded rush of chakra from it before, but now it's more balanced."

His body wouldn't have been able to handle the sheer raw chakra he was getting. By her estimation it would have taken under a week for everything to go up in flames. Naruto's body would give out, the seal would fail and release the beast, and nothing that was around when it did would have survived more than likely. Now at least, that wasn't going to happen.

Kushina really was great at what she did. Now more than ever, Naruto could be told that Kushina had been perhaps the most exceptional Uzumaki Clan kunoichi there had been and he would have believed it.

The look on her face was one of complete seriousness, focused on something more important than herself as she continued to explain things to him.

"Whatever happened, someone did a horrible job of sealing whatever's in you." The older Uzumaki thought that it had to be on purpose. Honestly, a Four Symbols Seal to hold back as much power as was in Naruto? Not a chance, "Listen Naruto, don't tell anyone how my seal works. I told you because you deserve to know. You need to know. What just happened to you is bad."

"What happened to me?"

"…I think you're a jinchuuriki." Cue blank stare from Naruto, "…Power of Human Sacrifice. You contain a biju." Confused tilt of head that finally pulled an annoyed eye-twitch from Kushina, "You've got a big-ass chakra monster in your stomach and if it comes out you'll explode and everybody around when it comes out is going to _die_."

Naruto understood that. The times when Kushina was blunt with him were the moments when he got things the easiest, "What?"

"Yeah, that's why we don't let kids mess with fuuinjutsu." Kushina said with a haughty sniff as she stood back up, "Oh sure, back in the day you could go around all willy-nilly, sealing stuff into other stuff, because _nobody_ knew how that crap worked. People still don't know how it really works. All people know is that it's an unwritten rule that everyone's followed since the Uchiha and Senju laid it down almost one hundred years ago. No sealing chakra monsters into people. It's weird that _that's_ the only thing we can't do when other people-."

"Mom you're talking a lot about nothing again."

"Oh. Sorry baby."

Still, if one knew the current political climate, it was amazing enough that those two clans ever managed to stop killing each other long enough to come to an agreement on this and impose their will over every other clan in whatever way they could by declaring that you couldn't create a jinchuuriki.

Don't seal a goddamn biju in a human. That was taboo. Everyone accepted this except for those that were very power-hungry, but most clans were absolute garbage at sealing techniques

That was kind of why the Senju Clan chose to make a tie with the Uzumaki Clan back then as well. Senju Hashirama wed Uzumaki Mito and the union between the clans was formed.

In actuality it was like the Uzumaki Clan was supposed to be the fuuinjutsu police and were meant to deal with anything suspicious seal-wise that the Senju came across elsewhere. In exchange, they weren't attacked outside of missions by other clans due to the threat of pissing off the Senju and the Uzumaki Clan hadn't fought a tooth-and-nail war that they'd been at the center of in almost a century.

But now if Kushina was reading things right, and she knew she was because it was fuuinjutsu for crying out loud, Naruto was a jinchuuriki. That was almost worst-case scenario. If this got out, a lot of bad things were going to happen. But there was almost no way to hide it. The damn Mind's Eye of the Kagura users would tell there was something wrong with her son with just one routine security sweep of the village.

Naruto told her everything on the spot. He told her about what he'd been travelling that far outside of the village to do every so often. He told her about Kurama, what Kurama was, and he watched her face pale as he kept talking about him. He told her about the masked man that he'd come across, and he saw his mother bare her teeth in hatred.

In the end, all Kushina could do was grab Naruto and pull him against her in the tightest hug Naruto figured she'd ever given him in his life. He didn't know what to do other than to return it, but before he could realize what happened she had picked him up and taken off running through the trees to get back to the village.

'There's nothing I can do for him here.' Kushina thought to herself, eyes straight ahead in determination as she rushed through the forest, red hair trailing through the air behind her, 'This is bad. This is really bad. There's no way this is going to end with Naruto staying alive. Jinchuuriki are taboo.'

When it slipped that there was something so potentially powerful within the grasp of the Uzumaki Clan, the landscape would begin to change. There would be too many angry and hostile clans, fearful and quick to act.

Status quo was king, and the creation of a jinchuuriki was the blade being held to that king's throat.

This was all happening so fast, Kushina had been running for almost twenty minutes before Naruto's brain caught up with the actions of his mother, "Hey, put me down. I can run by myself."

"You're slower than me and we don't have any time to waste." Kushina said sharply, admonishing that course of action, "A lot of things are about to happen, but no matter what I want you to promise me you'll do what I say to the letter."

This personality of Kushina was scaring Naruto, and the look in her eye showed that his usual spirited, fun mother was taking a backseat to the severity of what was going on, "A-Alright. I promise. I'll do whatever you say."

There are times in one's life when they can point out the moment where everything changed. The moment where you were set upon a path that you had no way of turning back from. For Naruto, it seemed like he'd been asleep during his, because now it seemed like nothing was ever going to be the same again.

XxX

(Uzumaki Clan Village)

Naruto had to wonder if Kushina had been preparing for some kind of contingency plan in the instance of something like this happening.

The moment they got back within the village limits she took them to the riverside that led out into the ocean, taking them over to a merchant that was about to ship out on a trip to the mainland for business.

It was a brown haired man who kept it up in a spiky ponytail and had a scar across the bridge of his nose. The man was just lazing in a chair on the docks until he noticed them coming. She didn't say anything to Naruto about what was going on, she just handed the man a scroll, gave him some short instruction, thanked him for accepting her request, and took him on.

"Naruto?" Kushina said, getting his attention as they started walking back into the Uzumaki Clan side of the village, "You know what I said about the Bunshin, and how I wasn't going to teach you anything until you showed me you could do it?"

"Yeah?"

"I was doing that for a reason, but that reason doesn't matter anymore." Kushina told him as she walked with him at a brisk pace, "Bunshin is a low-chakra jutsu and it's hard for our clan to master because most of us have strong chakra. I'm gonna show you a replacement for that, and I know you can do it, but I wanted your chakra control to be better. I just don't have the luxury of waiting anymore. This jutsu might save your life and I want to give you something just in case."

Just in case what? Were things really about to get that bad?

The rest of the trip was of Kushina telling Naruto about ifs and ors and what to do if this or that occurred. He'd never seen her so flustered before. Both of them were freaked out by the time that they got home.

But straight to the backyard they went, with Kushina wasting no time in teaching him a ninjutsu, and one with only one hand-seal to memorize much to Naruto's delight. He would have been more excited, but the time had to be dedicated solely to making sure he'd learned it to her satisfaction.

Eventually, Naruto found himself sweating on his hands and his knees, Kushina standing nearby keeping a watchful eye on him, "Hah… hah… I think… I think I've got it."

Kushina was pleasantly surprised at how Naruto had handled himself. She didn't let him know just how difficult the jutsu she taught him was supposed to be to learn, she just taught him how and let him practice. An hour into it he threw a tantrum and she thought that he would stop, but Naruto must have realized that something was wrong with his chakra control because the very next thing he did was work on the tree-climbing exercise to find his sweet spot again.

Then he returned to practicing the jutsu, with much better results as he was making leaps and bounds in progressing with it.

They'd started training before noon and didn't stop until near late afternoon.

It was probably because he felt much better when he was putting his mind and body to use doing something else other than worrying about what was going to happen now that he was a jinchuuriki.

'That was the highest-level jutsu I could teach you in the short amount of time we have left.' Kushina thought to herself as she watched Naruto down on the grass trying to rest, 'It was tailor-made for you, especially now that you're a jinchuuriki.' She smiled down at Naruto warmly, "Good job. I knew you could get it. Rest out here for a bit and I'll start dinner."

Naruto was too tired to give anything other than a thumbs up to her, still down in the grass as he tried to recuperate enough to get up under his own power and walk back inside. His mother had never been that much of a taskmaster when teaching him a jutsu, and he could see why. He learned it in one day, but damn…

He didn't know, but she knew that he could take the fatigue. Getting tired was probably not going to be a problem for him for a long, long time.

Maybe he could just take a nap outside for a minute or two though. Just for a little while.

XxX

After walking inside of their house, it wasn't very surprising for Kushina to find someone there waiting. She'd expected as much. There wasn't any way they'd go for very long without attention somehow being drawn to Naruto's condition.

"I didn't expect that you'd send yourself for this." Kushina said, moving to the kitchen to begin preparing a meal for herself and her son, "Were you thinking that you being a friend would soften the blow or something?"

As she did so she moved past Nagato who had been leaning against a nearby wall the whole time, "He's tough. Naruto I mean. He gets it from you." Kushina didn't say anything as he followed her and watched her begin her cooking process, "I watched for a while. Did you really teach him-?"

"Yes." Kushina cut him off, placing some vegetables on a cutting board that she began to chop. Each time the knife hit the board, the sound cut through the silence and caused Nagato to visibly wince, not that Kushina could see him, "I did."

"You know what we have to do." Nagato said, "If he's got a biju in him, we've got to see what's sealing it and find a way to get it out." He didn't want to sound so severe about it, but there wasn't any way around it, "If we don't, it's going to get around outside of the country what's in him and then all hell will break loose."

"That's why I taught him the jutsu that I did today." Kushina replied cryptically.

Believing that Kushina understood the brevity of the situation, Nagato figured that she'd taught Naruto such a chakra-intrinsic jutsu that would have been fatal for anyone else to practice to the degree that they did in one day to tucker him out. Just in case he resisted.

What Kushina actually meant was that she already knew that all hell was going to break loose the moment that it became clear that a biju was missing and that a jinchuuriki had been created. That was why she taught Naruto a jutsu that could protect him in the near future.

But right now…

"How long will it take to… extract it from him?" She asked.

Nagato shook his head, "I don't know. I've never seen a seal as strong as his before. It looks like a Four Symbols Seal, but it isn't." Using the counter to that seal to extract the biju from Naruto wouldn't work because it wasn't a Four Symbols Seal no matter how much like one it looked like, "We have ten days until we're to host the Senju Clan Leader, or everything's going to go to pot."

There would be too many questions that they wouldn't be able to answer to the more powerful clan, and even if they could, they wouldn't be able to excuse the fact that Naruto was a jinchuuriki. Nothing would.

Kushina stabbed the knife down into the cutting board deep enough to pin it to the counter, "This is bullshit Nagato! Taking the biju out is going to kill him!" There wasn't any real information on jinchuuriki, but this much was certain. Separating something that intricately woven into a human being's vital system would more than likely kill whoever it was, even an Uzumaki, "Even if it doesn't kill him it'll ruin him!"

The thought of some sick bastard putting a biju into Naruto for whatever reason he felt inclined to do so made her blood boil. She wanted to take it out on something, on some_one_.

"I know that!" Nagato snapped back, "You think I don't? That thing is bonded to his chakra network already! The Mind's Eye of the Kagura can barely tell Naruto's chakra apart from the biju's from what we've gotten so far! The last time this was recorded as happening anywhere in the world the last clan leader had to-…" He stopped himself from getting riled. Kushina was Naruto's mother and she was smart when it came to fuuinjutsu.

She already knew what this meant without him having to say anything about it to her.

And so lay the burden of leadership. The clan itself had to come before Nagato's own feelings for Kushina and how his decisions would harm her. He didn't want to end a child's life, but if he didn't Naruto would be the catalyst that would tear apart the mostly peaceful foundation that the clan rested on.

It would be like the bad old days, back before Uzumaki Mito married into the Senju Clan. They'd be alone on an island with enemies all around them again.

"I can't protect my own son." Kushina said with a bitter laugh and a sniffle, "I couldn't protect him from being lonely, I couldn't protect him from being treated like a black sheep, I couldn't protect him from some _freak_ in a mask, and I can't protect him now." She turned around with a look of killing intent in her eye, "I could fight you… but I wouldn't win, and you wouldn't even kill me for trying."

"I can't kill you."

"But you can kill my ten year-old son."

He didn't have an answer to that. He couldn't even deny that he would. Lying wasn't really a trait of their clan members. Honesty and resolute devotion to something that they saw as personally worthy of such attention from them was though.

When one of them believed in something they tended to be unwavering about it until the bitter end. For better or worse.

"I'll try to come up with a counter. I'll try to find some way to do it that won't kill Naruto or keep him from being a ninja again, but if I can't find one in five days I'll have to begin the extraction process." Nagato assured her as best he could.

He needed the five days before the Senju Clan arrival to get the biju out of Naruto and away from there. That was how long the ritual would take. The ritual was necessary because the seal was new, and if Naruto died so soon after its placement he could release whatever was in him dead center in the village.

Killing Naruto quick wasn't an option for just that reason, and sending him away wasn't an option either because he would be tied back to them. It wouldn't solve the problem and would be an absolute nightmare for them when it came to clan relations from that day forward.

Kushina just pulled her knife out of the cutting board and the counter and continued cutting up the ingredients for her to-be dinner, "…Get out of my house Nagato."

She said nothing else, keeping her back turned to him and refusing to look his way or tear her attention away from what she was doing for a moment. This was not how Nagato wanted his conversation with her to end, but he hadn't expected anything else.

For all of his power as the clan head, the most powerful ninja in the village, and the possessor of the Rinnegan, there were some things that he still could not do. Eventually he excused himself and left to begin getting to work on trying to decipher what he could of Naruto's seal that no one had ever seen before. He wanted to do it right to keep from releasing whatever it was upon them all.

"Five days." Nagato said just before departing, "That's all I can give you. I have to think about the wellbeing of the clan also."

Where she'd been standing, Kushina's grip on the knife was tight enough for her to cut into the palm of her hand with just the handle. Silent tears rolled down her cheeks as she stared straight down at the counter.

So in five days Nagato was going to begin the agonizing process of safely disposing of Naruto's biju. He wasn't going to even come close to cracking the seal. Kushina hadn't even finished it yet. She knew what she'd be spending the bulk of her time doing for that duration though. If nothing else, she could work down the mechanics of her own creation better for Naruto's sake.

Just because she didn't know just how to work the seal now didn't mean that she couldn't find out how to somehow for Naruto's sake. It was her design after all.

XxX

(Four Days Later)

If things felt off for Naruto to be in his own village before, he felt like he had the damn plague or something now.

His routine wasn't exactly routine anymore. He couldn't even sit off to the side and watch other kids play or train any longer. When he tried to do even that they would eventually notice him and proceed to instantly move away from him.

"My parents say he's seriously dangerous."

"There's supposed to be something really wrong with him."

"You can tell now. Just look at those marks on his face."

He could hear them whisper to each other as they scuttled away from him. It happened all over the Uzumaki Clan side of the village.

And he couldn't go back out into the forest. Doing that was what got him screwed over to begin with, and going back the second day didn't help him much… except that his mother kept him from probably exploding in a burst of city-smashing chakra in his sleep.

Naruto ran his hand across his belly, thinking to himself about Kurama somehow being in there.

Why did that man do that to him? To the both of them? It didn't make any sense to him. To seal Kurama inside of him and then just bolt? What was the point of it all? What did it accomplish other than mess up his life?

As he walked through the streets passing the homes of other clan members just going on with their day, he could feel their attention on him until the moment he looked up at them in return. This was the second reason he was unable to leave and do his usual thing. He could tell when people were watching him. Well everyone was watching him.

Aside from that, after what he'd been putting Kushina through the last few days with his running off being the catalyst that set all of this in motion to happen to him, he couldn't just do the same thing she told him not to afterwards.

Naruto clenched his eyes shut as he practiced taijutsu, punching at a tree in his yard, 'Why did this happen? Was it just me? Would it have happened to somebody else if it wasn't me?' Just thinking of the times at night where Kushina would just hug him for whole minutes at a time as if she were going to lose him if she let go of him. This was all his fault, 'If I'd never gone out there!'

One of his punches happened to be errant in its performance, veering his fist off enough to scrape the skin clean off his hand down to the white meat. Naruto hissed to himself in pain and shook the hand out frantically before running inside to run some water over it to make it feel better.

Five minutes later he pulled his hand out of the flow to check over his stinging knuckles only to find that it had already stopped bleeding and had even started to scab over in some places. He stared at his healing injury in awe, even as he pulled out something to wrap it with.

So weird.

Even after he'd finished and hid the ugly wound behind the medical wrapping, he stared at his right hand until his mother's voice roused him from his contemplation of his strange healing, "Naruto." She said to him, waiting at his room with a smile on her face and his backpack in hand, "I need you to run an errand for me."

"People are watching me mom." Naruto said with a frown on his newly whisker-marked face.

Kushina rolled her eyes and placed the bag on his back before tugging on his cheek, "No one's going to do anything unless you try to leave the village. They're trying to keep an eye on you because we've never had a jinchuuriki here before."

"Oh."

"Don't give me that frown baby." Kushina gave Naruto a wide smile and kissed him on the forehead, "Everything's gonna be okay. I promise." She stroked his cheek for what seemed like an eternity before her eyes seemed to refocus and she turned him around with a handful of money and a list, "Alright, go over and put in a new order at the blacksmith and pick up my last request from him."

It seemed mundane enough as she gently coaxed him out the front door, "Some of that is for me right?"

"All of the pickup is for you Mr. Cuts-trees-a-lot. The next order is for me." Kushina informed him, grinning while flexing a delicate bicep, "Mama trains too you know." She kept a strong face until Naruto had hustled off and vanished down the street. At that point she leaned on the doorframe and ran a hand up her forehead to smooth her crimson locks back, "…Okay, you've got twenty minutes to get him before the sensor shift change. Any later than that and you'll have every ninja in this village on your heels."

From inside of the house a shadowy figure came into the main room from the kitchen, "I won't have you to dampen my chakra signature after I leave so I guess I'll have to be quick." A somewhat casual male voice said, "The ship leaves in ten anyway, so I need to grab him and be on it before then."

"Just… take care of him, okay?"

"I won't let your son die Kushina-sama. I wouldn't be able to face Minato-sama if I did."

"Wait." Kushina reached up and plucked out a few of her own hairs to give to her 'guest', who took them, but was confused to do so, "Show him that when you give him my letter. Otherwise he'll just try to escape the moment he sees a chance."

Walking into a better light for the shaded living room, a tall lanky man came into sight. The young ninja-looking person had gravity-defying white hair, a headband with a plain metal plate over it that was slanted enough to cover his left eye, and a facemask covering his face from his nose down to where it was attached to his black long-sleeved top that had grey stripes running up the length of the arms and pants. Metal bracers sat around his forearms connected to his fingerless gloves, and leather straps crossed over his chest, holding up a special tanto on his back.

"Aw come on, do I look that suspicious?" The man said, apparently smiling from the way his sole visible eye crinkled.

"Yes." Kushina deadpanned, "Maybe if you took that mask off you'd be more trustworthy." She wasn't really particularly fond of people with masks nowadays after what had happened to Naruto, even people she'd known from years back.

"That hurts coming from you."

"I can see it all over your face."

"Still with the bad jokes I see."

With a sigh, Kushina moved into the house and shut the door, "One thing left I guess. Just make it look legit."

"It's going to hurt." Kakashi said, making a few hand-seals before pausing as a focused blue surge of electricity formed in his hand that lit up the room, "The Raikiri (Lightning Cutter) isn't really a gentle technique."

"I really don't care." Kushina said, turning her back to him, "Your little bug-zapper jutsu better put me out on the first try or-. AAAAHHH!" Kushina dropped to the floor unconscious after nearly fifteen seconds of being electrocuted, "Take my son somewhere safe…" She said, twitching on the floor before she went out entirely.

Kakashi just stared down at her with his hand still outstretched from using the Raikiri, "…You really are a tough lady Kushina-sama. And I swear on my life, I won't let your son die. He's a comrade after all. Or he will be anyway, once he meets his father."

He left the house entirely unseen, heading out to get to Naruto and leave with him as quickly as he could. This was the will of Kushina. The request she had sent out days before out of desperation when she'd seen the writing on the wall.

And if it was something that would save the life of Namikaze Minato's only son, Kakashi would get it done in a heartbeat. Jinchuuriki or not, it didn't matter.

XxX

(With Naruto – Civilian Side of Uzumaki Clan Village)

"Thanks a lot!" Naruto called out as he left the blacksmith's smithy and shop with a full supply of ninja tools and some extra in his backpack. There wasn't anything like feeling the weight of a loaded down pouch on his backside and knowing that you were well-armed, "Everything seems better when you've got some shiny black kunai in your pocket."

Running down the street as he usually did to get to wherever he was going, Naruto's mood dimmed when he realized that he was just going to be running back to the clan side of the village. The place where it always felt like he had hundreds of eyes on him at all times. Where no one would even smile hello to him or address him with a 'good morning'.

What was the point of running back to that? All of that crap would still be there whenever he got back, there was no rush.

And it was all getting even worse, because of the fact that he had Kurama sealed inside him. At least he still got some smiles and some nods sent his way when he was on the side of the village not populated by ninja. His lineage wasn't common knowledge there, and even people that knew didn't care since they weren't Uzumaki. They definitely didn't know about the whole jinchuuriki thing yet, and even if they did, ninjas barely knew what to make of the anomaly so how much would they really know about it?

That could be worse though, because ninjas who barely understood reacted negatively. The unknown was scary, and would be even more so for those that couldn't defend themselves in the slightest.

He wasn't thinking about that in the slightest however. It didn't cross Naruto's mind. It was just nice to relax and sit down somewhere where he didn't have to worry about how people saw him, or saw his mother for having him as her child.

'I've got to keep going though.' Naruto thought to himself, 'For mom's sake. I'll turn this around. I'll show everybody that I'm a great ninja one day, and it won't matter who my dad is, or what I've got sealed inside of me.'

And he'd have to find something to do about Kurama as well. That big old grumpy fox didn't do anything to him to warrant being stuck inside of him, but he didn't know enough about his predicament. Nor did he know anyone that would actually know how to help him, especially not in the village if anyone even would help him here to begin with.

If any of the adults knew what to do for him, they would have done it already. That was how he felt. So by that train of thought there wasn't anyone in his clan that could do anything, except Kushina. The seal was hers, so if anyone could find out what to do it would be his mother.

Hands in his pockets, Naruto felt that he still had some leftover money from the blacksmith, "…I guess I'll go get something to eat and go back. Gotta keep working on that jutsu mom taught me."

XxX

It wasn't hard to follow Naruto, even if none of the Uzumaki Clan members keeping tabs on him were sensors. With bright yellow hair he stuck out like a sore thumb, so even travelling to the civilian side of the village didn't do much to throw them off while letting them keep a great distance away from him.

Their place on the rooftops of the bustling little town allowed them to keep a great view of him while allowing them to hide themselves. The little ten year-old was technically a ninja, but he wasn't used to eyeing his surroundings enough to know when he was being watched by people that had experience doing so for years and years.

Still though, it was kind of scary to imagine the power of a biju in such a little body. If he lost it, everyone was going to pay the price, and Kushina's son never seemed to be the most level-headed. Everyone had seen him throw a fit and all of the clansmen knew what his voice sounded like due to its usual exuberant volume.

It didn't exactly instill confidence that he wasn't a bomb with a fuse of unknown length. Hell, sealing something that powerful wasn't supposed to be done for a reason. There was a purpose behind it being one of the top taboos, and it was probably because it couldn't be safely done and the risks of it failing were too monumentally high and abundant in number to attempt.

"Hey, don't you guys have something better to do than watch a kid?"

They didn't even feel the added presence amongst them until it had spoken. Turning around to face the man that had snuck up on them, they all got a quick eyeful of a red eye with rapidly spinning features and fell dead asleep on the spot.

A good look at his face wasn't even an option due to how quickly the genjutsu had set in on them.

Kakashi looked over his handiwork and nodded to himself. Killing them was the absolute worst thing he could do right now, so that was a last resort in this case, "Either way that should buy me a good window until they wake up, but if I don't have Naruto on that ship in a few minutes this isn't going to end well."

If everything was blown he could probably take on his fair share of the ninjas that would come for him, but the numbers would wear on him, as would the fact that no ship would be leaving Uzu no Kuni until he was captured. And then if he managed to attract the attention of Nagato himself to venture forth to stop him… well he didn't really want to think about a morbid outcome such as that.

With that nasty little thought in mind he took off to go meet the new jinchuuriki before such a fate would befall him.

Naruto wasn't that hard to find. If nothing else, Kakashi had to admit that the people posted to watch Naruto had to have been patting themselves on the back for getting such an easy detail. While a member of the Uzumaki Clan would stick out anywhere else in the world, someone that had such prominent features of another type would stick out amongst their ilk.

When he caught up to Naruto he saw him standing off to the side outside of a sweet shop seemingly trying to decide on what to get. The pensive look on his face was a bit amusing to Kakashi, who figured that it would be the same look someone would have when deciding a matter of grave importance.

Instead, Naruto was just trying to pick between getting a little cake or buying a gigantic bag of sweetened almonds.

"I wish there was a place around here that sold ramen…" Naruto thought to himself grumpily before shaking his head, "Nah, it wouldn't be as good as mom's."

Kakashi just rolled his eyes and took his place in line that Naruto was setting aside for when he made a decision and bought both things that he saw Naruto had an eye for. Noticing he had Naruto's attention, he handed him the bag of almonds, "There."

Naruto took the bag from the stranger since he'd seen him buy the food on the spot, but raised an eyebrow at the odd man in the face mask with his eye covered, "Who are you?" Naruto asked, following him once the man started walking away. He wasn't from around there, otherwise he probably wouldn't have done that, "Why'd you do that for me?"

"Oh, I'm just a traveler." Kakashi said, smiling down at the boy from behind his mask as he walked along, "And you looked like you needed help making the decision."

"Huh?"

"You couldn't choose one over the other. In cases like that when your choices are so hard you can't make it, it's best when you can have both isn't it?"

Naruto looked down into his other hand and grinned when he saw that Kakashi had given him the other small cake as well, "You're pretty weird, you know that?" Naruto said, though the expression on his face showed that there was no malice or accusation behind it, "Why's your eye covered like that?"

"Hmm…" Kakashi said, as if considering whether to tell him or not, "Well I'm kind of hurt that you called me weird. If I tell you what's behind my headband you'll probably just think I'm even weirder, so I probably shouldn't say."

"No, no! I didn't mean weird as in 'weird-bad', I meant it as in 'weird-cool'!" And he did. Kakashi was cool as far as Naruto was concerned. He looked cool, he carried himself aloofly which was awesome, and that mask was mysterious and badass.

"Like 'crazy-awesome' instead of just 'crazy'." Kakashi said, in comparative understanding.

"Yeah! That!"

Kakashi just chuckled before stopping, "Okay, you really want to see?" He asked, getting a frantic nod from Naruto, "You'll have to keep it secret for me. Can I trust you with that?" Another nod, and now Naruto was bouncing on the balls of his sandaled feet in anticipation, "Alright." Kakashi said as he reached for the headband.

Was it wrong that he felt bad about how well that worked?

XxX

(Five Minutes Later – Docks of Uzumaki Clan Village/Civilian Side)

Umino Iruka wasn't really much for the ninja life.

He'd been a member of his own small clan that had been whittled down over the years to his father and his mother, the latter of whom had married into the family. Being complete small-fry when it came to pecking order, his family did ninja work for subsistence pay and never really stepped on the toes of the infinitely bigger clans even back when they had more size to them population-wise.

His clan was so small that even when dropping his family name of Umino around Uzu no Kuni parts, no one had any idea that it was a clan name. This was due to the fact that they only operated around a single village that hired them in Hi no Kuni.

It wasn't that glamorous or honorable an existence, and Iruka found this out after his parents had died and he tried to go it alone for a little while. He had some savings and was still young enough and smart enough to go into business for himself somehow. He was able to make way more money with around the same level of danger or less simply traveling at sea and trading. That way at least he was his own boss.

It damn sure bumped his life expectancy to up past 30 to be a travelling merchant, which was the age where most ninja and even civilians caught in areas of constant conflict were expected to die before reaching. He was only 21, he didn't need to be thinking about that. He couldn't even freely let his surname fly lest some ancient enemy of his clan run across him. That was the way that things were.

He still practiced the ninja arts, but he had never been much of a talent to be on the lookout for back before he'd gone into maritime trading, so it never really stood out. His clan never really had anything that set them apart, other than one thing he could do which helped him at sea quite a bit. For one thing, he never really had to hire any ninja from clans to protect his cargo. He could typically do that himself.

But that was neither here nor there.

What mattered right now was that he'd been given a request letter from Kushina a few days ago to sail to the mainland and bring someone back to get Naruto out before things went wrong, someone he would recognize on sight from her description. He did, and he returned with him. Let it be known that Kushina had great instincts.

And at the moment, Iruka sat off to the side and raised an eyebrow at the sight of Kakashi just casually strolling back onto his vessel with a little boy in tow, obviously Henged enough so that an untrained eye wouldn't think it was Naruto.

"…Now how in Kami's name did you get him to do that willingly?" The young captain asked. He knew quite a bit about Naruto. From what he would have surmised, if he knew what was happening he would have fought it kicking and biting the whole way, "I figured he would have raised so much of a fuss himself that you would have either been late or had the whole clan breathing down your neck by now."

"It wasn't willingly." Kakashi answered with a shrug, "Apparently Sharingan isn't something that's well known since the Uchiha are so far away." They'd work on that though. Both the general world knowledge thing and the illusion-spotting thing.

"Sucker for a genjutsu?" The former ninja Iruka asked rhetorically with a chuckle as he watched the lucid boy be steered up the gangplank onto his ship, "I heard his mother used to be terrible at them too. She still says she's bad at using them."

"I almost felt bad until I remembered that it was for his own good." Kakashi said, patting an almost nonresponsive Naruto on the head, "Kushina-sama said that he's going to be beyond pissed when he snaps out of it, but for now he thinks that I'm walking with him to the clan limits."

"Setting sail then." Iruka said with a shrug as he quickly pulled the gangplank up, reeled the anchor up, and went to get things started, "I can't come back here again to trade after this, but if Kushina's son is safe I guess I can live with having one less friendly port to stop in. I owe Namikaze-san anyway."

With the nimbleness of a trained ninja, Iruka swiftly made his way up the mast of his small ship and let the sails fly free to get them going.

Kakashi nodded and sat Naruto somewhere safe on deck, sighing as he placed his hands on his shoulders, "You won't be able to come back here for a long time. I'm not very good with children, but I'll do my best. I promised your mother that I would." He said quietly as he could feel the ship begin to pull away from port.

"Kakashi-san!"

"Yeah?" The man in question responded. Iruka sounded quite alarmed at something that he could see from high up and then he noticed what it was. The men he'd rendered unconscious from before had woken up in time to chase the ship down the docks, "Man, these people are a bunch of diehards." He commented as he lifted his headband back up.

That wasn't the only thing though, as Iruka could see multiple ninjas crossing the bridge from the clan side of town into the civilian portion. It was only a matter of time, but luckily no one would be able to give chase in any kind of suitable ship until they were well down the river and on their way out to open sea. Full canvas it was then.

As Iruka opened the sails all the way and the ship started climbing to its top speed, Kakashi breathed a sigh of relief as they had finally run out of dock to give chase from. Good, because he didn't want to fight on a ship and risk damaging it. Especially when it belonged to someone else.

Wait, why were they making hand-seals?

Why were they jumping onto the surface of the water?

Why was the water ahead of the ship doing that weird thing?

Crap. A water-based jutsu.

Behind the ship a whirlpool started to take form and Iruka's ship was already feeling the pull backwards into it. In a panic, Kakashi started making a large number of hand-seals as fast as he could before water began to rush out and up dozens of feet into the air before crashing down at the whirlpool with as much force as Kakashi could remotely muster, "Suiton: Daibakufu no Jutsu (Water Release: Great Waterfall Jutsu)!"

The violent collision of water on water disrupted the whirlpool, and the push of Kakashi's jutsu ebbing on the surface of the water forced a wave that gave Iruka's ship a little push farther ahead. Now that was what one would call taking a bad situation and turning it upside down.

By now having dropped down to the deck to steer his ship, Iruka just shook his head and kept his eyes straight ahead. People wondered whenever the topic rarely came up as to why he quit. It was a no-brainer when one had to think about dealing with things like that, 'I can't beat people that can do any of that.'

Seriously, it made Iruka feel like the smartest man in the room right now when it came to ninja life. He had been in a clan that was too small-time to be worth the attention of anyone that would pit them against the bigger clans and he got out when he was presented with an alternative way to make ends meet.

"And that leaves us with-." Kakashi trailed off as he could hear a loud warning bell ringing from the village that they were leaving behind them, "-No time to spare. Good work everybody."

"I'm the only other person here Kakashi-san." Iruka said.

"I know. Good work steering… I guess. I don't really know too much about ships to know if you were doing a good job or not."

And this man was going to be responsible for a brand new jinchuuriki that was also a manic ten year-old boy with little respect for authority? And let it not be forgotten that he had more or less been abducted to begin with.

That was going to be one miffed kid when he woke up.

"To Hi no Kuni it is then." Iruka said, already with his compass at the ready for when they exited the mouth of the river, "Nobody's going to catch this ship in the open water."

Kakashi just sat down by Naruto and lowered his headband back over his Sharingan eye, "Still a drain on my chakra, even for just that long." Kakashi reached over and used his hand to close Naruto's eyes before breaking the genjutsu he'd placed on him earlier, "Being around you is going to suck when you wake up."

XxX

(Uzumaki Clan Village – Kushina's House)

Kushina was being looked over by a pair of medic-nin that had come to her place after it became known that the watchers had lost track of Naruto. She just sat silently in a chair, back exposed with a miserable look on her face while they worked to heal her.

The door was open and outside she could see Nagato issuing orders to several teams of ninja who took off to search as far and as wide as the word that Naruto was missing was spreading all over the village.

Now that that had been attended to, Nagato turned around and walked back inside where Kushina still looked to be in extremely rough shape from whatever had happened to her, "Oh Kushina…"

"You ever have one of those weeks?" Kushina said, voice sounding dry from the attack that had dealt her damage, "One of those weeks where everything that seems like it can go wrong does, and you're not even around for most of it to happen?"

"Nagato-sama." One of the dutiful medics said as the other ran her hands over Kushina's body with a green glow to them, "Kushina was attacked from behind and suffered rather serious injuries from the ambush."

Nagato nodded and checked outside to see several more shinobi being relayed his orders through another before heading off to find the lost jinchuuriki. Speaking of which, "Whoever attacked you took Naruto."

"Now do you see?" Kushina asked a bit bitterly, "But I would be lying if I didn't say that I'm kind of glad this happened. Of all the terrible things that could happen, at least I don't get to watch my child die. You haven't figured out the seal yet… have you?"

He hadn't. He didn't understand how something as rudimentary as doubling up on a Four Symbols Seal could be so effective. It was so crude and seemingly basic, but there was something to it he just couldn't get. It wasn't as plain or as simple as it seemed somehow.

"I had one more day before something drastic needed to be done." Nagato said with a frown before dismissing the medics, allowing Kushina to cover herself back up, "But now it doesn't matter. How someone got far enough into the village to disable you, three of our shinobi, and take Naruto, I'll never know."

"Someone got onto the island and sealed something inside of Naruto without anyone knowing it already. I'm not surprised someone could get here too." She replied, covering her own tracks when it came to responsibility as to how Kakashi had gotten so far in without being detected, "It's not like there aren't plenty of places to hide, and you didn't really put out anyone to sweep the countryside in case they were still here."

It tied in with Kushina talking about how Naruto had been assailed by a man in a mask, but for some reason the three ninjas that had been defeated by him couldn't identify him by sight. All they knew was that he had on a mask. That was too vague. Sharingan hypnotism was just too much of a boon for some users, especially some that could get as creative as Kakashi.

Still, Nagato couldn't help but hold some suspicion towards Kushina. She was being surprisingly quiet. This was the way she had been for the last few days, a marked difference from the usual spirited, cheerful, somewhat arrogant temperament that she possessed on a daily basis. Hell, being attacked the way she did should have had her all wound up wanting to get the bastard who did it back at all costs.

Even if she didn't believe in the chances of him finding out a safe way to get the biju out of Naruto within the next day, he figured that she'd want to get Naruto back if only to have a little bit more time with him.

"You're right." Nagato said, walking forward and putting a hand on her shoulder only for her to turn away from him, "But you have to be honest with me right now Kushina. I don't know what it is, but I don't like the smell of this. If you know anything at all about what's happening past what you've already told me, I need you to share it. You have no idea what can happen if you don't."

She could feel his chakra as if it were touching her soul. That wasn't good. This was a Rinnegan power he was using to interrogate her. With it he could just remove her soul to find out what he wanted to know, but he was giving her a chance to tell the truth before taking that final course of action.

Kushina partially turned her face to him with a look of displeasure, "Don't you think I'd like to know where he is? Where he's going? You want the truth Nagato? I have no idea what's going to happen to Naruto. I wish I did. I wish I could go to him and get him right now, and I wish I could kill the people that did this to my family. Is that what you want to hear?"

"It's not what I _want_ to hear." Nagato said, removing his hand from Kushina without removing her soul and ending her life, "…But you're not lying." He backed away closer to the door before speaking again, "I don't think you should stay here by yourself. Come and stay at the mansion. You can help find Naruto, and it's best until you heal from your wounds."

"Is that an offer or an order?"

"I can make it an order if need be."

"Well then I guess I have no choice… Nagato-sama."

That brought a flinch from the clan leader. Kushina hadn't ever referred to him with a noble honorific the way that all of the others did, and now it was done clearly as a method of expressing her ire for the current circumstances.

Still though, "I'll have someone assist you with moving in." He needed to keep an eye on her as he knew that there was something up. And maybe he could get her to see him in a more personal light, "You're still my friend Kushina." And he wished she could be more than that, "But you know the survival of the clan has to come first."

Kushina just nodded and Nagato took that as his moment to leave, which he did in a Shunshin. Wrapping her arms around herself, she looked over on the wall at a picture of Naruto and herself.

"Kakashi, you'd better get Naruto to Minato."

...Wherever Minato was in the world.

XxX

(Naruto's Mindscape)

'Okay, where the hell am I now?' Naruto asked, walking through a flooded corridor that seemed to be like some kind of utility tunnel. There were pipes on the walls and it was wet and dank all over.

He had no clue where he was and he was so confused out of his mind that all he could consciously do was follow the indescribable pull he felt, navigating him through the labyrinth of pathways.

**"****Damn those eyes. It happened to me again."**

He heard echoing off of the walls. Was that Kurama?

**"****Stuck inside of the weak, defenseless body of an adolescent human brat."**

Well that wasn't a nice thing to say. Did he even know Naruto was listening? "I'm not weak you big, stupid fox! And I can hear you by the way!" Running with his footsteps splashing up water, Naruto charged his way to a gigantic gate, behind which Kurama was lying down, "Are you pissed?"

**"****No. I love having my freedom barred with me stuck inside of this goddamn cage."** Kurama lunged forward and slammed his body futilely off of the bars, scaring Naruto back, **"Of course I'm pissed! Your bitch mother made the seal stronger!"**

"Well don't yell at me! It's not my fault!" And the rest of Kurama's statement then caught up with Naruto, "Don't call my mom a bitch you big red douche! If she didn't fix the seal-!"

**"****-If she hadn't fixed I would have broken out BY TOMORROW!"** Kurama bellowed, tails waving wildly in anger, **"Your body, and the strength of the seal that bound me, both were too weak to keep me here! I would have busted out by sunrise tomorrow! Five days, and I would have been on my way!"**

"But…" Remembering what Kushina told him, Naruto paled, "But that would have killed me. That would have killed everybody around me when you broke out."

**"****That wouldn't have been my problem… but this ****_is_**** my problem."** The gigantic fox began to calm down after finally getting a chance to vent to someone that would listen, **"You wouldn't be a sport and tear that tag off of the bars for your old friend Kurama would you?"**

Well, doing it would kill him. That tag with the word 'seal' on it was obviously the mental representation of the seal as well as Naruto's will to maintain it, and pulling it off meant that Naruto would be straight up breaking it. Breaking it in such a crude manner would outright kill him. You couldn't undo seals with force and expect nothing terrible to happen in return.

Uzumaki Clan members and seals. Naruto was at least that knowledgeable about them.

Naruto just stared up at the face of the fox and tilted his head to the side, "I'm not taking that stupid tag off without a _really_ good reason."

The intelligent creature of mass destruction took a second to think about it before his red eyes looked down at Naruto's, **"I'll be your best friend."**

The thought was tempting, and Naruto had to admit that the idea of being real friends with something so awesome was seriously tempting. That was something that he wanted for a year after he stopped being afraid. There was one big problem with that though, "I'll be dead."

**"****I'll remember your sacrifice for about two weeks."** Kurama said solemnly, **"…Also I won't eat whatever's left of your corpse after I get out. Common courtesy you know."** He concluded with a toothy smile only for Naruto to turn a direct about face and march his way back from whence he came, **"Hey! I'm all-powerful you little shit!"**

"You're all-stuck behind that gate right now from what I can see motherfucker." Naruto quipped, hands up behind the back of his head as he walked away, "There's a lot of stuff I've got to figure out and do before going suicidal to free you comes up."

**"****It's definitely on the table though, right? Come on, what do you really have to look forward to? You're probably going to die before you're 30 like everyone else anyway."**

"Stop trying to make me kill myself already!" Naruto bellowed one last time before turning the corner to leave, "I'll figure it out just… chill out or something! I'm a peacock Kurama! You've gotta let me fly on this one!"

**"****Right, you'll figure it out, I'm sure."** Kurama snarked sarcastically,** "I'm not sitting here waiting for you to kick the bucket so I can die with you and respawn five years later!"** Kurama's claws crashed through the bars but didn't get very far due to the seal as Naruto walked out of sight and literally out of mind, **"And peacocks don't fly like regular birds you little dumbass!"**

XxX

(Somewhere in Hi no Kuni)

Naruto's eyes slowly opened and he started moving around on the ground underneath a tree in a forest somewhere. It wasn't his neck of the woods though. He only needed to be there for a few moments to know that he felt absolutely nothing familiar about his surroundings.

"Ugh. Where am I now?" He asked aloud, sitting up on the ground while rubbing his head. The smell of food cooking filled his nostrils and Naruto looked around the trunk of the tree he was under to find the white-haired guy from before tending a small fire with his back turned to him.

Naruto pressed himself to the trunk of the tree and felt around on his person to find that he was still fully armed. By now his brain had fully caught up to what was happening and realized that he wasn't home, and this guy had something to do with it.

So should he try to attack him before the guy realized he was awake, or make a break for it? Decisions, decisions.

If he could beat the guy and do so without killing him, he could try to interrogate him and figure out just what was going on and why. If he ran without trying to fight he had a better chance of getting away if he was outmatched… not that he would ever admit to being outmatched.

Also, running away was such an ugly way of putting it. Uzumaki Clan ninja didn't run away. They deliberately withdrew and assessed their situations before finding better ways to continue a fight on their terms.

Naruto flipped open the kunai pouch at his thigh to arm himself, but before he could even reach for a weapon a voice cut through the tranquility of the forest and stopped him cold, "Oh, you're finally awake. You slept for quite a while you know."

So the choice was now either run when the guy would definitely know you'd tried to take off, or fight him when he definitely knew you were coming.

Meanwhile, Kakashi remained with his back to Naruto while he tended the fire and watched how the fish he'd caught from a nearby river were cooking. There wasn't any need to face him right now. There were only three things he'd do. He'd either sit down and talk like a reasonable adult would do, he'd try to escape, or he'd try to fight.

One of those things were off the table because Naruto wasn't a reasonable adult. He was a ten year-old ninja far away from home with plenty of reason to be paranoid and scared out of his mind, even if Kakashi _hadn't_ basically abducted him from his village.

So he'd either fight or run, and Kakashi was prepared for both, so why not make sure that he didn't overcook the fish?

"Do you want something to eat?" Kakashi asked amicably, "The fish are almost ready."

"Sneak attack!" Jumping from the branch of an overhanging tree down onto Kakashi with a kunai in hand, Naruto felt like he was going to get him, until he wound up hitting absolutely nothing but a random log, 'I didn't even see him move! That Kawarimi was so smooth!'

"You know, it's not really a sneak attack if you call out that you're doing it beforehand." Kakashi chided from ten feet behind Naruto, getting him to nearly jump out of his skin, "Good morning~! Now that you're awake and got that out of your system-."

He was cut off by a quick lunge from Naruto with the kunai to stab him in the stomach, but he easily stopped that by grabbing Naruto's wrist and stopping the stabbing motion before the point of the blade ever came close to touching him.

It wasn't even a matter of a test of strength as Naruto tried to push forward to drive the knife into his enemy. Kakashi was holding him back and making it look easy… because it was. He was ten. Kakashi had thirteen years of age on him and an uncountable number of years of experience.

"Who are you?" Naruto grunted out, not budging Kakashi's arm an inch.

"I'd be more inclined to answer if you put the kunai away Naruto."

"How do you know my name?"

"…Same answer?"

"Fine!" Naruto replied, "If you won't tell me I'll just beat it out of you!" This was said while he was still completely unable to stab Kakashi or even remove his wrist from the one-eyed man's grasp, "Just as soon as I… get out of this!" Naruto emphasized by tugging fruitlessly to free himself.

It was probably wrong, but Kakashi was rather enjoying himself. This kid was odd, and it almost made him forget that Naruto was a jinchuuriki, 'This is actually fun.'

And then it stopped being fun.

From the trees, a small platoon of Narutos jumped down and set themselves upon Kakashi, having gotten themselves in position while the original had been dealing with the adult ninja. You don't know fear until you see twenty of the exact same person flying through the air at you with nothing but bad intentions.

'He can make that many with just the regular Kage Bunshin no Jutsu?' Kakashi thought with one wide eye.

Kushina told him that she'd taught Naruto a special clone jutsu to help him out back when she was warning Kakashi that he'd probably try to fight him after he realized what was happening. She had neglected to mention however that she'd made sure he knew the super steroid-enhanced version of a basic jutsu that a kid his age _should_ have been using.

The Uzumaki Clan definitely didn't know how to do things half-assed. Thank God she didn't teach him the forbidden version because he knew for a fact that she knew it.

Shifting his grip on Naruto's wrist, Kakashi spun around and pulled Naruto off of the ground to throw him into the air and take out several clones on contact, forcing them to disperse in puffs of smoke. From there he had a side that he wasn't surrounded on that he could quickly move to when the rest landed and came after him.

Naruto and his clones on their end were getting frustrated. The guy was completely keeping out of their reach altogether and they couldn't even touch him. He was moving just fast enough that they could see him and keep up but couldn't land anything on him; not a punch, a kick, a shuriken toss, anything.

"I'm sorry. I know you're really trying here and I don't want to be 'that guy', but the speed you're moving at-." Kakashi said as his hand slowly crept up to the sword on his back before he suddenly streaked forward in a single rush straight through the wall of clones that had been pursuing him. All Naruto could be sure that he saw was a flash of white light from when the weapon had been swung, "-Against me you might as well be wading in mud."

The recipient of the sudden action was left wide-eyed and astonished. That was the speed of a high-level ninja that was able to survive out in the cold world that they called the Elemental Nations? The ability of a man that had the ability to live past the life expectancy for most people in the world?

And he was supposed to take missions to deal with people like that? So far the most he'd done had been some pitiful little deliveries across the island.

Kakashi's cut had come so quickly through most of Naruto's clones that there was a lag time between when the blow was struck and when they finally expired. Kakashi had made a concerted effort to get as close to Naruto as he could without harming a hair on his head, and letting Naruto know that if he wanted to kill him or strike a disabling blow he could have done so easily.

Letting out a sigh, the white-haired man resheathed his amazingly cool tanto and walked back over to Naruto, flat out ignoring the other three clones that he knew were clones due to how defensive they seemed to be over the one that he had kept track of as being the creator, "I don't want to hurt you. That's not why I took you away from your village. Now if you want to keep fighting we can do that if it will make you feel better, but at some point you have to move forward with this."

Having said his bit, Kakashi walked past Naruto and the rest of his six remaining clones to return to the fire, "That didn't take so terribly long. Come on, the fish aren't burned that bad yet."

Naruto just looked between his clones who all just shrugged at him. They were at a loss too. What else could he do? He didn't know where they were in proximity to Uzu no Kuni to begin with, and if this guy wanted something from him he really could have just taken it already. Hell, he put him in a situation where he could fight back.

Dispelling the rest of his clones, the displaced ten year-old slowly walked over to Kakashi and the fire only to see three fish bones on the ground already. Great, so he wouldn't even get to see what the guy looked like behind his mask while he was eating either.

"Now I know you probably have a lot of questions." Kakashi said, trying to break the ice with an amicable tone, "I'll answer whatever I can honestly. Just remember that I'm on your side first and foremost Naruto."

Suspiciously, Naruto sat down across from the fire at Kakashi, at least separating the two of them by that small obstacle if need be and just stared at his face until he felt the need to say something. Silence never really sat well with him. Time not running his mouth wasn't time well spent.

So he decided to start off with something simple, "Who are you anyway? What are you all about?"

"Ah, introductions. Of course. How could I ask you to trust me if you don't know the first thing about me?" Kakashi said, apparently giving Naruto a smile from how his eye closed in a seemingly pleasant expression, "I'm Hatake Kakashi of the Hatake Clan. I have no real desire to tell you my likes and dislikes. My dreams for the future…? Hmm, never really thought about it before. And as for my hobbies… well, I have lots of hobbies."

With each 'answer' that Kakashi gave Naruto past his name, the whisker-marked youth's face fell more and more, "Those are terrible answers! That was the worst introduction in history!" In the end, all Kakashi did was tell him his name and clan affiliation, "…Can I hit you?"

"No." Kakashi denied him bluntly before smiling behind his mask again, "Now it's your turn."

Naruto squinted his eyes at Kakashi and scratched his own cheek before talking about himself, "Alright, the name's Uzumaki Naruto of the Uzumaki Clan. I like my mom, the ramen my mom makes, and doing stuff."

"Stuff?"

"Yeah, stuff. It's better than what you said." Naruto pouted, getting defensive over his answers.

"Carry on then." The masked ninja was going to allow it lest he be accused of hypocrisy.

"I don't dislike much, except vegetables I guess." Naruto continued, trying to come up with some on the spot answers for things he never really thought about or had to explain to others. No one else ever really cared to know except Kushina, "I even hate when they're in ramen but at least they're a bit better then. And my dream, to kick some masked guy's ass straight to the moon."

'I hope he's not talking about me.' Kakashi thought to himself before bringing something up, "I notice that you didn't say that you hated your father." He knew for a fact from Kushina that Naruto didn't have any love for him.

At the topic of Minato, Naruto just gave Kakashi a wide grin that was a bit alarming when coupled with what he said next, "Well I can't hate somebody that I've never even met can I?" It was kind of disturbing just how little of that smile reached his face, "I don't really know how I feel about the guy. My mom loves him to death, talks about him all the time… but I don't get it."

Kakashi could only imagine. He didn't have the best relationship with his father when he was Naruto's age, but at least he had one. There were a lot of good times in there, and there were moments when his father happened to be his hero. If Naruto was earnestly bitter or not, Kakashi couldn't tell yet, but time would tell.

"I can tell you that your father is a good man." Kakashi said, hearing Naruto snort as he grabbed his own fish on a stick to eat, "It's because of him and your mother that I took you away from your village to protect you. If I hadn't, by tomorrow you'd have been forced to undergo the extraction process that your clan developed for removing a biju from a jinchuuriki."

"That doesn't sound so bad." Naruto admitted. So that meant that someone had come up with a way to do it safely right?

Kakashi just shook his head sadly, "It would either kill you or cripple your system of chakra. Even if you survived you would probably never be a ninja again."

Whoa. That was different, "What? Why? I'm not gonna do anything! I didn't put Kurama in me, it wasn't my choice! Why do they _have_ to kill me?" It was a bone-chilling thought that he had been less than twenty-four hours away from having his very essence sucked out of his body.

All he wanted to do for them was be a ninja and show them that he wasn't the sum of what they thought he was because of his father. He wanted to prove he was a real Uzumaki Clan ninja. But that was never going to happen as long as he was a jinchuuriki, and the only way out of it would kill him.

"Just the fact that you exist as you are could flip the entire world on its head. You have no idea just how much of a shift that you can cause as a jinchuuriki do you?" The distraught look on Naruto's face clearly showed that he didn't, thus Kakashi continued, "Kushina-sama asked me for help. It won't take long for your clan to find out that she had a role in your escape, and she's willing to endure the consequences as long as I keep you safe."

"What? No!" Naruto shouted, spitting out a mouth full of fish, "We've gotta go back! We've gotta get my mom! Nagato isn't a dumb guy you know! He'll figure it out quick!" And no one could defeat him.

Back before Naruto was born, when Nagato unlocked the Rinnegan as a little kid his age he was labeled as one of the most dangerous shinobi in the world. Back then he and Kushina were on a three-man team that were sent to reinforce the Senju Clan during one of their many large-scale operations. According to lore, on a team comprised of Senju ninjas at least ten years his senior not only were he and Kushina the only ones to survive, but they completed the mission and almost the entire kill count for the mission rested at his feet.

The details on it were sketchy, but no one ever doubted the amount of power Nagato had. When he left the village to go train, everyone knew it because they could oftentimes feel the results of his more destructive techniques being practiced. The guy didn't seem exceptionally dangerous. He actually seemed kind of apprehensive until there was a time for him to cowboy up, and then there was no mistake about exactly how perilous it was to tangle with him whatsoever.

"Your clan won't kill your mother no matter what." Kakashi assured Naruto, walking over to set a hand on his shoulder, "If they killed her word would get out somehow. And if that happened they can assume for a fact that they would definitely never see you again. So they need her in good condition. It would be in their best interest to find you, and that's why you're with me. Kushina-sama didn't come with us and allowed herself to be a hostage for a good reason. We can't go back."

Besides, what would they look like? One lone adult ninja and a kid taking on the stronghold to free the noble maiden being held prisoner? Not a chance. They wouldn't even be able to get any of the ships that routinely traveled to Uzu no Kuni to grant them passage lest they include themselves as enemies to the Uzumaki Clan as well.

The only reason Kakashi got as far into their village as he did the first time was because Kushina had planned every single move of his operation out in advance for him and worked her own village system beautifully. She was definitely good in a pinch. It had been the perfect storm, and it would never work again.

As proof to what he was saying, Kakashi showed Naruto strands of Kushina's long red hair and proceeded to hand him a scroll that Naruto unfurled and began to read, "She told me to show you her hair when I gave you this in case you didn't believe me. I didn't open it."

Naruto nodded and gulped heavily as his eyes scanned across the characters on the parchment.

_Naruto._

_I know things seem very strange and very scary right now, but you're going to have to be strong for me and for yourself. I would do anything in the world for you, and that's why I couldn't let you stay in the village. You didn't get a fair shake to begin with, and because of what you have sealed inside you wouldn't have lived to see the end of the week. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this baby, but in matters of the single person against the group the group will always win out._

_Nagato and the rest of the clan are afraid of what it will look like if there's a jinchuuriki in our forces. There's no way we can prove that we didn't seal away the biju inside of you. There's no proof and no trace of the masked man you that you talked about anywhere on our island or in our records. _

_I can't let them kill you with the extraction process, so I'm asking you to go with Kakashi here. He's a friend of your father and I knew him back when he was your age, before you were born. You can trust him with your life and he'll never let you down._

_Don't worry about me and what might happen to me staying back here either. Nothing bad's going to happen to me, and even if it does your mother is tough. Even tougher than you for sure. You get it from me, and I'll be fine on my own in the village as long as I know you've got a fighting chance at having your own life._

_Keep this scroll with you always Naruto. I already gave Kakashi a scroll with everything that you'll need. Sorry about deceiving you with the errand, but you'd probably have just acted like a little dumbass if I flat out told you about all of this in advance._

_Remember that you're not just a jinchuuriki; some human with a biju inside of them. You're my son and I love you with all my heart, so go and make me proud. I'll see you soon. That's the promise of a lifetime baby. And what did I tell you about making promises?_

"Don't break 'em." Naruto said under his breath to himself, wiping a few building tears away. He wasn't going to cry like a baby in front of the weird guy in the facemask. That wasn't cool at all, 'I'm gonna save you mom. Just you wait. No matter what I have to do, I swear.'

There was really nothing that Kakashi figured he could add to whatever had been written down in that scroll to ease his mind any more than Kushina already had.

Naruto stared at the other fish he had left to eat and didn't feel too hungry at the moment, "So we're just supposed to run away until someone catches up and takes us out or what?"

"No, actually I'm going to take you to your father. Just like Kushina-sama wanted me to do."

Blue eyes opened wide and the stick fell from Naruto's hand in shock. Kakashi not only knew his father, he was going to take him right to him. Nerves quickly set in and Naruto's hands started to shake.

What would Minato think of him? Did Minato really want to see him to begin with? Why didn't he ever show up, or send any word? What had he been doing for ten years to stay away from his wife and son?

"…We just have to find him first."

"W-What do you mean?"

"I mean we have to track Minato-sama down. I have no earthly idea where he is right now."

The only sound that could be heard was that of the crackling fire, the animal noises from farther out in the woods including one incredibly loud crow cawing, and the heavy silence between Naruto and his apparent to-be caretaker.

Every time Naruto started to be impressed with Kakashi or the things he said, Kakashi had a knack for saying something to bring Naruto's opinion of him back to earth. He had to be doing it on purpose, that was the only way it seemed logical for someone to shoot themselves in the foot that many times.

"Don't worry though!" Kakashi commented brightly, patting Naruto on the back, "Minato-sama is a world-famous ninja known for the major cause he's seeking to accomplish. He simply has to constantly move around because he has no clan and no home. All we have to do is pick up his trail."

His confidence was kind of inspiring though. The nonchalant way he approached the topic actually gave Naruto some hope, 'Yeah. Mom talks about dad like he's some kind of superhero or something.' The way people kept talking about him, it was like Namikaze Minato could handle any problem no sweat, 'If I can find him… and if what mom says about him is true, he can definitely help. I can tell him and he can save mom!'

It was an odd thing. Moments before Kakashi saw nothing but trepidation, confusion, and fear of the future in the eyes of the boy next to him, but in a matter of moments something changed.

Confidence, determination, and the formation of a purpose and a goal that was going to be achieved by his own two hands at all costs. It could be chalked up simply as a child making up his mind stubbornly on something, but it was more than that.

Kakashi already knew that no matter what he said, Naruto was always going to endeavor to save Kushina. To get back to her somehow, someway. That was something he'd made his mind up about. But he looked like he had a plan of action. A basic plan of action, but still a plan nonetheless.

And it seemed like it wouldn't be something that would make the task Kushina requested of him very difficult.

Naruto quickly polished off the rest of his food and followed Kakashi once he stood up, "So you'll come with me to find Minato-sama?" He asked Naruto, glancing down at him with his single visible eye to see Naruto nod spiritedly, "That's good to hear. It'll be good to have some constant company again for once. Just don't slow me down too much would you? We'll have to keep moving if we ever want to find him."

"Don't worry about me." Naruto replied with a grin, kicking dirt on the fire to put the rest of it out, "I'm not stopping until I'm face-to-face with my old man."

He needed some answers from the guy that he'd been waiting years to ask… and above all else he needed to save his mother.

With a shrug, Kakashi unsealed a bag and threw it over to Naruto who put it on his back. He wasn't going to carry that kid's stuff around when he was perfectly capable of walking and doing it himself, "Let's get going then. He could be anywhere in the Elemental Nations."

Taking a deep breath as he shifted the bag around securely, Naruto just looked around at his surroundings and trailed behind Kakashi as they left the area.

Just what was out there waiting on him in the world? As long as it led him back to Uzu no Kuni and the safety of Kushina, he'd be fine with everything. No matter what was to come he could endure it.

In the coming months and years he would look back on that mindset time and time again and later marvel at just what he'd originally expected out of his involuntary journey. How short he expected it to be, even at its longest. In his wildest dreams he couldn't have imagined just what he and the people around him would have to deal with or how long it would truly take to resolve it all.

The problems of one boy and one clan that were a regional issue at best winding up as a catalyst that led the world to change? Who could have anticipated that?

* * *

Major Clan Information

Uzumaki Clan  
Leader: Uzumaki Nagato

**Population: 3/5  
Military Strength: 3/5  
Economy: 4/5  
Notable Traits: Only clan inhabiting their relatively peaceful island nation. Extensive knowledge in fuuinjutsu. Versatile abilities displayed amongst the clan members, no particular specialization. Powerful life force and longevity. Incredible tenacity and dedication. Longstanding and close relationship with the Senju Clan. Most clan members possess bright red hair.  
Area of Operation: Uzu no Kuni and islands to the east of the Elemental Nations mainland.**

* * *

**Nothing to say for this one. The story's just starting. Let's do this.**

**Kenchi out.**


	3. Go With the Flow

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. I'd settle for getting my car fixed though if anyone wants to hook me up with that.

**Chapter 3: Go With the Flow**

* * *

It had been a tense few days for the Uzumaki Clan following the apparent abduction of new jinchuuriki Uzumaki Naruto. The ships sent out to try and give chase didn't catch up in the short voyage that it would have taken to reach Hi no Kuni from Uzu no Kuni, and there had been no information on a little blond kid and a white-haired older ninja coming through any of the nearby port towns that they would have had to use on that coast.

That probably meant that they'd hopped off in a cove somewhere or jumped ship without the captain stopping at all, letting them water-walk or take a rowboat close enough to shore where they could just leave without docking anywhere.

So there was no sign of Naruto anywhere. He could literally be anywhere in all of the Elemental Nations. For all they knew they were off-track entirely and the ship that had absconded with him could have given them the slip by heading out west to Mizu no Kuni instead.

The sun rose and set, and the days rolled past until it was time for the set meeting with the Senju Clan to maintain their fostered clan friendship with the Uzumaki. Nagato had been dreading it, and from the window of his mansion that could see all of the village.

Since sunrise that morning after seeing to the preparations meant to greet his guests, Nagato had been standing at the window of his office staring down at the port reserved for the Uzumaki Clan side of the river until a ship made it there to dock.

With a sigh he left his office and began the long trip down to greet the Senju before his secretary and guard could even inform him that they had arrived, 'I just want to keep the Uzumaki Clan as peaceful as possible.' He thought to himself as he walked the halls, "If you're going to follow me like this you might as well walk with me by my side down to meet with the clan head."

"Thank you for the invitation Nagato-sama." A smooth female voice said from the shadows of the mansion before right next to Nagato a woman appeared in a whirlwind of paper, "It's an honor to walk by your side."

Nagato just rolled his eyes and smiled as he began to walk again with this new woman falling in step alongside him, "You know I'm the only one around here that can tell when you're being sarcastic Konan."

The Konan woman had neck-length blue hair with a large light blue paper flower in it on the right side, a small piercing under her lip, and a stony expression. Her clothing consisted of black leggings, white high-heeled sandals, and a navy blue robe tight around her body and neck that exposed her arms, the sides of her ample breasts, and started its downward slit at her stomach to show her pierced navel.

A small smile broke through her serious façade upon being called out by the Uzumaki Clan leader, "And what makes you think I'm being sarcastic Nagato. That hurts. You know I have nothing but respect for you."

"I know. You're a good person and a fine friend to have for all these years."

"Well I feel that one of your childhood friends has to show some sort of loyalty."

It was clear to Nagato which particular friend Konan was referring to, as he really didn't have that many left that were still alive, and there was really only one in particular that she'd always had a particular distaste for, "Kushina is being kept under watch in the mansion for suspicious activity already."

"I've already seen her." Konan said dryly, "In the garden just out back. I was watching her and she somehow knew I was there and waved at me." Not exactly the way a distraught mother was expected to act, but then again Kushina was a cheeky woman and Konan knew that she wasn't exactly a fan of her either, "I don't trust her Nagato."

"Well what would you have me do?" The red-haired man asked as the sun greeted them upon their exit from the mansion down the gigantic staircase that would take them into the clan side of the village, "She didn't lie to me. I went straight to her and put her on the spot with her life on the line. She spoke no lies."

The pierced beauty just let silence fall between the two of them. She knew that Nagato would never just kill Kushina. Konan was actually surprised that he was willing to use the threat of Soul Removal on her to try and interrogate her. Personally she would have preferred that he turned the heat up via interrogation with the King of Hell, but he wouldn't torture her. Not Kushina.

She was just happy as she was though, even with Kushina putting up her big fake smiles while walking around the mansion that she was technically prisoner in. She was happy that even though she wasn't a member of any clan, let alone the Uzumaki Clan, they treated her almost as if she was one due to her longstanding friendship with Nagato and her abilities as a kunoichi.

It was a cold world out there, especially when one was a shinobi with no clan at their back. Life as a close confidant of the Uzumaki Clan's most powerful ninja and leader was infinitely better than her life as a child, teenager, and young woman had been.

And she and Nagato were moving to greet one of the main contributors to the tumultuous nature of the world today in the Senju Clan.

Accompanied by a select group of Uzumaki Clan ninjas, they came to a stop as Nagato moved within range to greet them.

Most of these clan members wore traditional armor as well similar to what many Uzumaki Clan members wore only theirs seemed to be less elaborately plated than the host clan's choice of bodily protection.

Their leader didn't wear any armor at all though.

Senju Tsunade, widely considered to be the most powerful kunoichi in history and one of the most supremely powerful individuals living today. She had long blonde hair tied in two tails down her back and wore red lipstick while sporting a small green diamond mark on her forehead. Despite being at least twelve years Nagato's senior she looked to be in her twenties or so. No one ever called her on it though, unless they had a death wish.

The powerful woman dressed in markedly more casual attire than those she had chosen to take with her, choosing to wear an open deep green jacket. Underneath that she wore a sleeveless grey kimono blouse with a dull blue-grey obi holding it closed quite low enough to show off a good deal of her sizeable bust. Her pants were the same color as her obi, and she wore heeled sandals to complete her appearance.

"Senju-dono."

"Uzumaki-dono."

Nagato smiled amicably and extended his hand that Tsunade took and shook, "I hope you had a safe trip getting here." He could feel the bones in his hand creak just from such a simple gesture. She probably wasn't even trying to do it, 'This is probably her holding back as much as she can.'

"There wasn't any trouble. It's just as beautiful here as the last time I came by the way." Tsunade commented, looking around the serene setting that she found herself in, "It's been a few years."

It actually was extremely pleasant to come out to Uzu no Kuni. Compared to literally everywhere else in the world it was an extremely peaceful place. It was big enough for the Uzumaki Clan to live on and operate with good business as the only ninja clan, and small enough that you couldn't really fight a war there. Not like Mizu no Kuni, another sea-based nation that consisted of too many islands to count. That place was a breeding ground for constant conflict.

"Well it's wonderful to have you back." Nagato said as he and Konan fell into step with Tsunade and her entourage, joining their procession to the mansion, "I'll show you myself the prepared rooms where you and your escorts are to stay."

A stiff nod came from Tsunade and a preoccupied look came to the face of the young-looking lady, "I hate to bring it up so quickly without even getting settled in first, but some disturbing information has been drifting around for most of the last week. I think it would be best if we got to the bottom of the rumors as soon as possible to either dispel them or confirm them."

The mood between Konan and Nagato sobered quickly from the bright front the latter had put up upon greeting Tsunade. Things quickly got serious again.

"I understand." Nagato said, "Come with me."

XxX

(Meanwhile – With Naruto – Hi no Kuni Countryside)

Naruto was a little frustrated with the way that things were going. The rate of their progression being chief amongst the things frustrating him.

Five days since he had decided to follow Kakashi's lead in the search for Namikaze Minato, and pulse-pounding times of ninja awesomeness were not being had by all the way that he'd expected.

Now to be fair, Naruto didn't rightly know what to expect from the mainland of the Elemental Nations, but from the stories the picture that came to mind of what to expect from the country of Hi no Kuni was big forests, pretty blue rivers, and a desolate battlefield every few miles or so where if you were lucky (or unlucky) you could stumble into the midst of a huge conflict or two.

He did not expect to be sitting on top of a big long cart being dragged by a team of oxen down a sunny highway.

The reason for this particular predicament was due to the fact that they had absolutely no money. That was going to be a problem if they didn't know where they were going and how long it would take to get to wherever in the world it was.

Kakashi, being an intrepid young man with sources and a fellow nomad ninja in a similar vein as Minato had connections for garnering contracts and wound up dragging Naruto to see to one.

Their clients for the time being were a father and a young daughter that owned and operated a travelling business, a roving ramen stand that travelled all over the Elemental Nations and had taken their trade to Hi no Kuni for the time being and needed bodyguards to traverse the dangerous lands.

Naruto was an instant fan of theirs and was all for it at first. They paid them in regular installments for the duration of the contract, were willing to go anywhere that they could get business if there was a place in particular that their bodyguards wanted to go, and most important to Naruto they fed them for the free.

Yes please.

But it was just that they weren't ninjas. They were regular people; a middle-aged man and his fifteen year-old daughter. Not a bad thing or something reprehensible, but they didn't move very fast compared to shinobi.

"Maa, Naruto you shouldn't be so hasty to get into trouble." Kakashi called from where he was simply walking alongside the cart, reading calmly from a small book, "We have no idea where Minato-sama is and where to begin looking. Running all over the countryside for nothing isn't going to do anything for us but get you killed."

"Nothing's gonna kill me until I get mom back!" Naruto stated resolutely, sitting and pouting on the roof of the cart, "You work with my old man right?"

"Yes, I'm a confidant and a follower. I could even say that your father had a major hand in forming the kind of ninja I am today."

"So why don't you know where he is?"

"Because with that logic every time he needs to go somewhere new he would have to find me and tell me first. Do you have any idea how difficult it would be for him to actually find _me_ when he needed to?"

Well it would probably be significantly easier for a few reasons that have yet to be explained, but it would still be rather tough even for him.

Not nearly as tough as it would be for Naruto and Kakashi to locate Minato himself though, that had to be emphasized.

Such was the life of a nomad ninja.

The nomad ninja, they had no home. Their home was where their spirit roamed… or so went the lyrics to that tune. How was it supposed to go again? Oh he'd remember it sometime later and make sure Naruto memorized it for kicks.

"Gah! That doesn't make any sense!" Naruto cried out, rubbing his spiky hair in exasperation, "You're friends with him and you say you work for him, but you can't find him and he can't find you!"

"I didn't say that I work for him, I said I'm a follower." Kakashi corrected with an amicable smile up at his current young charge, "I said that I believe in what your father's cause in the world happens to be. He's someone that I think has the ability to change the Elemental Nations for the better, and I'm not the only one who thinks so."

Naruto just squinted down at Kakashi, his face twisted in an expression of confusion. He didn't get it, "Right. Whatever you say." He tried to keep his skepticism from bleeding through into his voice, and he failed miserably.

Seriously, his father couldn't have been that big of a deal… could he? Maybe it was because Naruto had never seen the man in person, so he couldn't imagine what kind of guy he was. He didn't know.

"Stay sharp Naruto." Kakashi told him when he figured that Naruto was zoning out from the expression on his face, "Just because we don't know if anyone is after us doesn't mean that no one is out to get us."

Naruto just looked around at their surroundings. For once they weren't in a forest. They were on a high road constructed in a grassland area with more than its share of rolling, green, lovely hills, "Like who? We're literally the only ones out here. Two other guys and a billy goat walked this road coming the other way and that's been it all day."

And they had bought food from the ramen stand that stopped to feed them, thus slowing them down further.

"Bandits, local gangs, travelling street killers, other ninja clans." Kakashi listed off on one hand as he continued to just read, "Naming only a few of course. You don't have to look very hard to find a threat. We aren't on Uzu no Kuni anymore."

Naruto just silently mimicked Kakashi's subtle chiding about how they weren't on his home island any longer. He knew that, even if Kakashi hadn't been trying to fill his head with all kinds of general knowledge of exactly what Hi no Kuni was all about.

It was one of the more dangerous places to hang about for a clan ninja to live, which was really saying something. There were two clans, larger than any other that found themselves constantly at each other's throats dominating most of the landscape between each other; the Senju Clan and the Uchiha Clan. For every other clan in the country that _wasn't_ Senju or Uchiha they were basically either with one or against them both in this.

Completely sovereign clans that didn't choose to favor one over the other found themselves as proxy enemies of both simultaneously, so it wasn't a good place to refuse to side with one or the other. Neither the Senju or Uchiha clan had many fans outside of those that had chosen to join up with them, but it was nowhere near an equal partnership for the ones that did as they were basically the buffers for their larger comrades and forced to defer.

That wasn't important right now however. It would be the moment they came across a Senju or an Uchiha, but until that point in time they would be fine. For the time being their goal was to protect that ramen cart and pick up Minato's trail.

Good little ninja that he wanted to be though, Naruto kept a sharp eye from his elevated position peeled on looking for anything that he would perceive as threatening until a hatch next to him on the roof opened up and a teenage girl of fifteen wearing a white robe with the sleeves folded back to behind her elbows climbed up with a sigh. She had brown eyes and long brown hair covered partially with a solid white bandanna.

She was the daughter of the man that owned the travelling cart. Just a regular civilian girl, and one of Naruto and Kakashi's two clients.

Grinning at seeing Naruto sitting so close to the hatch, she reached out and pinched his cheek much to his chagrin, "How's it look up here Naruto-chan?" Ugh, she just had to be five years older than him didn't she? He was a deadly, deadly shinobi for goodness sake, not a pet or a cute little kid, "Getting the view from inside at the bar window isn't really that fun even if dad seems to be okay with it."

"It's not fun up here either." Naruto said as she climbed the rest of the way up and sat down next to him, "Hey, it's dangerous up here." He heard Kakashi snort from where he was walking alongside the cart due to the young ninja's change in attitude from mere moments earlier, but Naruto ignored it.

Taking a moment to scan the surroundings of the cart, the girl frowned at Naruto's apparent warning, "There's nothing out there."

"Uh… Just because we don't know if anyone is after us doesn't mean that no one is out to get us?" Naruto said, trying to remember and quote Kakashi verbatim from just before, once again hearing a snicker from the facemask-clad ninja, "Shut up Kakashi!" It wasn't his fault. He was distracted by the smell of the magnificent food that the cart served.

The frown remained on the girl's face, "Aw, that's a shame. And here I made you something to eat and everything." With that she placed a steaming hot bowl of miso ramen right in front of Naruto, who was torn between trying to keep an eye out and stare down at the godly sustenance that taunted him with its close proximity.

"C-Can't eat." Naruto said, stopping his own hand from involuntarily moving toward the bowl once the girl presented a pair of chopsticks and put them into the bowl ready for use, "Gotta keep lookout." His stomach protested loudly at his apparent commitment to excellence.

"It's okay Naruto." Kakashi consented from the ground with a helpful smile, "There's nothing on this road anyway."

"Hate you!" The hungry young ninja shouted down to Kakashi, "Hate you so much right now!" Perhaps Naruto needed to amend his list of dislikes to include guys with masks, because he wasn't the biggest fan of them right now. But upon being given the go ahead, Naruto immediately dove into the food presented for him before it could get any cooler in the spring air, "Thank you Ayame!"

He felt the need to slip the thanks in to the girl as he started chowing down since he probably wasn't going to stop to take a breath until he was good and done. Man, it was good stuff!

Ayame smiled at the gratitude, but it wasn't really a happy one as she sat and watched Naruto eat rapidly. He was so adorable, a little pint-sized ninja. But even so… "I don't think you like me very much do you Naruto-chan?"

That got Naruto to pause in his eating, a mouthful of noodles hanging limply, "Hmm?" He finished the rest of what he had to eat at that moment and stopped chewing before answering, "What are you talking about? What makes you think I don't like you?"

"Well yeah, you introduced yourself and you smiled and all of that, but the only person you really seem to ever say anything to is Hatake-san. That's okay." The pretty ramen waitress said with a shrug, "I just thought you were a cute kid, and you seem nice. Kind of loud-." Amongst other negative traits, "-But you seem like you need a friend."

Naruto's face asked the question even if his mouth didn't. Was it really that obvious? And he didn't mean to come off as if he didn't like her. She was a kind girl, but Naruto didn't feel like he was in a situation where he could stop and smell the roses.

Kakashi had told him something a few days ago that stuck out in his mind. He wasn't going home anytime soon, so it would probably be for the best if he found a way to make some friends or something out in the world. It was dangerous to do so yes, but Kakashi was well aware of Naruto's black sheep status in the Uzumaki Clan.

If he didn't have someone out there to befriend, what was he going to do with himself? Hang out with Kakashi all day? No, Kakashi wasn't the child-friendly type. He liked them when they weren't miniature killing machines, but he wasn't really the best person to be around them for long periods of time by himself. It was a secondary reason that he took the Ichiraku Ramen contract to begin with, because Naruto needed some sense of structure if only for a little while.

And Ayame apparently fell in love with the little bastard at first sight. He was the most adorable thing she'd seen since her father had packed up from their original home and taken their business on the road permanently and it was quite obvious that she wanted to hug him or put him in her lap, or something. But with everything happening that he had yet to get used to, Naruto was about as cuddly as a pit viper right now and roughly as dangerous as one to boot.

"I'd... like a friend." Naruto admitted in a bit of an embarrassed grumble, "It's alright with me I guess." Was it? Yeah, she was a good person and he knew as much.

Ayame let out a pleased squeal and gave Naruto a quick hug with a big smile on her face, "Can I put you in my lap?"

"No." Naruto said, confused at what was going on now. Why would she ask him something like that? How strange.

"Could you call me Ayame-neechan?" She asked with big doe eyes. Unlike with Karin, this hadn't been done to death with Ayame, meaning that it still had some sway over him.

Even weirder still, "What? Why?"

"Can I feed you?"

"Wha-? No! Hell no!"

"But you're so cute and little!"

"I'm not little, I'm 10!" Naruto knew he was short even for his age. He didn't need it being brought up when he had to live it every day. He'd grow eventually damn it!

"Right, you're little!"

"…"

"…"

"If you can give me two of those things I asked for I'll get you seconds in just a bit."

"…Okay, you can put me in your lap… Ayame-neechan."

Viper meet snake charmer.

XxX

(Uzu no Kuni – Uzumaki Clan Village – Clan Leader's Mansion)

It was extremely disconcerting information to hear firsthand, and it was a rumor that Tsunade would have much rather debunked than had proven correct, but as she sat in front of the desk in a private meeting with Nagato it was exactly what she was hearing from him.

"You mean to tell me that you really do have a full-blown brand-new jinchuuriki out there, and you don't know where he is-." Tsunade said, fingers tapping on the desk she was sitting in front of impatiently, "-Because someone took him from your village?"

"That's correct." Nagato said, "A few days after Uzumaki Naruto's jinchuuriki status became known to us he was abducted." His fingers netted together in front of his face as his Rinnegan eyes stared directly at the unnaturally young face of the Senju leader, "We believe he was created and abducted by the same person or organization, as there was no way that word left this island of him being the container of a biju."

"Were you ever going to tell us that you had a jinchuuriki in your midst?"

"The situation was to be remedied before your arrival. He had been taken the day before preparations for the extraction process were completed." The explanation from Nagato was as guarded as could be. Just because they were supposed to be friendly with the Senju Clan didn't mean that he was going to cough up some of their most sacred secrets and knowledge of their more sensitive techniques.

There was a reason that they were the ones called to deal with every single one of the very few jinchuuriki incidents that had occurred in the world after all, because they had the consensus best methods of dealing with them.

An irked Tsunade put on a bit of a strained smile and it showed all over her face, "Alright, which biju does he have then?"

"That's indefinite at this time." Nagato's eyes drifted downward when he heard the force of Tsunade's fingers drumming on the desk crack the hard wood. Just tapping her fingers idly had punched holes in the desk, "I'd appreciate it if you didn't damage my furniture Senju-dono."

His concerns over the condition of his furniture was ignored by Tsunade abruptly standing up, "So you not only have a kidnapped jinchuuriki out and about with Kami knows who, but you don't even know which one he has in him?"

Sure it wasn't definite, but with the info available and a knowledge of tailed beast patterns of appearance one could break it down. The Ichibi never left the desert, the Nibi would never turn up anywhere near large bodies of water, the Yonbi and Gobi liked more mountainous areas, but that still left five more that it could possibly be.

Once again, while he couldn't lie very well at all, Nagato was not going to let on to their most intimate secrets. While he hadn't been able to find a way to deal with how fine the seal-work on Naruto was, he had discovered other things from his research. The whisker-marks would have only been the possible markings of two creatures, one of whom had been eliminated by the region that they lived in.

Naruto had the Kyuubi in him. Of all creatures it had to be the one with the most tails didn't it? He hadn't told anyone outside of the need-to-know spectrum which tailed beast Naruto had within him, because it really didn't matter if you didn't know, but it was something kind of scary to think about.

If he told Tsunade that the Kyuubi was the one inside of Naruto, she and the Senju Clan would collectively overreact. Well overreact wasn't quite the best word because it was certainly a big deal, but it would be damn close to appropriate. That clan didn't have the best longstanding history with that particular biju.

No one had a good history with any of them that they'd come across in recorded history, but for the Kyuubi in particular with the Senju Clan. Being used as a weapon in battle against the strongest ninja in their clan's history by their most hated enemy would do that.

"We can handle this ourselves." Nagato insisted with a bit of a diplomatic edge. Yes, she was older and more experience, but if Tsunade believed that he would back down on this she had another thing coming, "If this had happened to any other clan and word had gotten out about it to you or to us we'd be the ones going out to handle it regardless, so what makes this time any different?"

"Because this time _you're_ the one it's happening to." Tsunade pointed out with a narrowing of her eyes, "That kind of puts some scrutiny on you doesn't it? Who better than to try and take control of the biju than the only clan in the world that everyone knows for a fact can handle them?"

"Are you kidding me?"

"Not at all. Take him away in a staged kidnapping, keeping him out of the eyes of the rest of the world and training him for your own devices." Tsunade presented as a possible scenario, "Not a bad plan to begin making a play for the top."

It did sound like something that could be done with their resources, but that still didn't stop Nagato from bristling at the accusation because it was entirely untrue, "I don't think I like what you're insinuating. And how pray tell did you even come across the information that led to this conversation anyway? The child that the biju was sealed inside of was attacked by one man… wearing equipment to conceal their identity and any discernable features."

"Well apparently they wanted the word to spread."

"But you don't know who it is or where the rumor originated from?"

Tsunade slowly sat back down and inspected her colorful nails as she spoke, "It's been passed around so many clans in Hi no Kuni so quickly it's alarming. There's no idea where it started from. But it turned out to be true much to my chagrin, and I'm certain that you know what this means Uzumaki-dono."

Of course he did. He wasn't a political novice, but even so, after the conversation he'd been having Nagato was feeling a tad vindictive today, "No. Go ahead and enlighten me."

'Cheeky upstart.' Tsunade said with a narrowing of her eyes, "Fine."

And so she laid it out. Everything. With the fact that the origin of the rumor wasn't from the Uzumaki Clan, it would seem like they were breaking the precarious balance that the world already sat on. That would make them no friends on that front. And as they were so closely linked with the Senju Clan it would seem like they were using their position as an actual close partner to the most powerful clan in the world to do as they pleased to consolidate the power of both.

Having even one jinchuuriki between them would make them horrendously imposing to do battle with, but the threat would hang in the air that the Uzumaki Clan could always make more if they could locate the extremely elusive biju necessary to do so.

They needed to find Naruto somehow before the hackles of the other clans in the rest of the world were raised. If one clan got a wild hair up its ass and decided to raise the stakes by trying to make their own jinchuuriki, starting an arms race of sorts.

And that wasn't even mentioning the fact that being set on an island and having the Senju Clan as a close ally would do nothing any longer once the Uzumaki Clan found themselves in the crosshairs of the others.

Hearing it all started fully putting the weight of what was going on firmly on Nagato's shoulders, "We'll handle it. We'll handle it before everything starts coming to a head. You may be able to subdue the power of a biju…" Nagato pointed at the green crystal necklace worn by Tsunade, "…So you should head up the search through Hi no Kuni. We'll handle the search at sea until one of us pinpoints him."

"And you're sure about that?" Tsunade asked with a raised eyebrow, "How exactly do you plan on locating him at sea? He could be anywhere. You said it yourself."

Nagato just shook his head, "We've got powerful sensors, you should know this. We'll be fine on our end. There are only so many places one can travel to from sea even if it's a vast place."

"What about extraction? Isn't it unsafe to kill a new jinchuuriki?"

"No. At least not any longer. And definitely not by the time that one of us will find Naruto." Nagato pulled out a picture of Naruto that was taken after he had taken his first missions on the island as a ninja, "If you find him you can end his life, and the same thing will happen to the biju."

It would reform eventually however, but it would solve the problem. Nagato didn't expect it after saying such a thing, but Tsunade clearly had a problem with killing a child. Surprising considering the nature of the relationship between Senju and Uchiha had children Naruto's age on the battlefield taking on adults as full-fledged shinobi.

Her face looked hesitant as she looked at the picture of the blond boy, as if looking at an image of a ghost of the past. Nagato tried not to let it show that he saw it, but he didn't think she was paying attention to anything other than the image.

Tsunade cleared her throat to regain composure before speaking, "And you say that killing him is the only option?"

"The only option other than extraction." Nagato said, "But the process has an almost unanimous chance of killing him and a 92% chance of effectively ending his career as a ninja on the off-chance that he somehow survives."

"I see."

Outside, Kushina leaned against the closed doors. The meeting wasn't necessarily secret. It was just possible that it was to get heated and no one on either side should have been nearby in case tempers flared.

It wasn't forbidden for anyone to be near, and she had listened in for most of the meeting. Taking a deep breath, Kushina shut her eyes and placed a hand over her heart, 'I gave you as much of a headstart as I could Naruto. I believe in you and I believe in Kakashi.' She opened her eyes as she felt another presence nearby, "Konan."

"Kushina." Konan's footsteps brought her nearly face-to-face with the Uzumaki redhead, "You always know when I'm getting close." She heard a jangle of a chain, but figured it was in her head as she hadn't seen anything, "It's rather annoying."

"Mmm, I'm good at what I do like that." Kushina said wryly, "I was never the best at ninjutsu, but I'm _very _tricky." The blue-haired woman's amber eyes narrowed at Kushina who stood off of the door to face her, ill intent leveling between the two, "You know, I never figured what your problem was with me after all these years."

"My problem?" Konan said, moving close enough to stand chest-to-chest with Kushina, "Where should I start? Everything that I would have dreamed of as a child you have right in front of you, but what are you willing to do to preserve it. This village, your peace, the trust in you that Nagato-sama has. You don't believe in the bottom line and what's in front of you. What about the greater good Kushina?"

"Whose greater good? The clan's?" Kushina replied, baring her teeth at the insinuation from Konan, "And how much should I give up until someone like you thinks that it's enough? I lost my parents on the battlefield as a little girl, I gave up my husband for the clan's traditions, I gave up my career for the clan's peace of mind, and now my only son is missing and slated to be killed. So I'm so sorry Konan." She finished with the thickest sarcasm that she could muster.

It was not lost on the close friend of the clan leader, "Sorry you say?"

"I'm sorry that I love the family that I had-, no, the family that I _have_, because Minato and Naruto are still out there somewhere. I'm sorry I can't help but love them more than a clan that will turn their backs on me for having a child with the man I adore."

She didn't back down a step, even though Konan knew for a fact that Kushina hadn't taken a mission outside of routine deliveries and things on the island she'd taken with Naruto since he'd been born. She hadn't fought a real battle in years. Those men, Naruto and Minato, they were her daily peace.

"If not for this clan you'd have never had enough peace to find that man of your dreams. If not for Nagato-sama protecting you on that Senju mission decades ago-." Kushina just laughed before Konan could finish that statement and moved right past the paper-manipulating kunoichi, much to her confusion and anger. She was playing off the events of the mission that Nagato first established his name in the world on? She was laughing like she knew something that no one else did, "What are you laughing at?"

"It's a family secret." Kushina replied cryptically as she brushed past Konan and walked down the hallway of the mansion, "…But if you really have that much of a problem with me you can either sit on it the way you are now, or we can go out to this isolated little ravine that my baby discovered to play in and we can settle up like women. Nobody has to know."

Before Konan's hand could reach the doorknob, it stopped in midair, shaking in excitement momentarily at the thought before she quelled the desire to go and do so, "You're never supposed to leave the mansion, and if I took it too far and killed you Nagato-sama would never forgive me."

"Well whenever you feel like you want to I'm right here." Kushina threw her hands up behind her neck as she left, somewhat reminiscent of how her son would stand or walk when he was playing something off, "I'm not going anywhere for a while."

It was a good way to end a conversation to piss people off she'd come to learn. From how she could feel Konan trying to burn a hole through her back with her eyes it had clearly worked.

"I'm going to go find Naruto myself for Nagato."

This time it was Kushina who visibly reacted, stopping mid-stride for a few seconds before continuing on along her way without turning around. She didn't have to. Konan knew that she'd gotten to her.

XxX

(Some Time Later – With Naruto – Hi no Kuni Countryside)

A yawn found its way out of Naruto's mouth as he diligently sat on the roof of the ramen cart and kept an eye on all of the scenic surroundings that they'd stopped at in order to sell food for a short time.

In the mid-afternoon they'd managed to reach a very busy crossroad area with several paths leading in all sorts of directions, with people visible travelling at the time they'd reached it. The owner of the ramen cart saw that then was just as good a time as any to set up and make some money.

Naruto wondered why they didn't just go the rest of the way into a village that was only a few miles away down one of the roads, but Kakashi just rubbed his head and said that they'd probably wind up doing that in a little while. The travelling crowd was the target demographic of Ichiraku Ramen, so seeing to folks outside of the village was a priority of sorts at the moment.

Kakashi had gone ahead into town to scout things out a bit just in case there was something worth being wary about, leaving Naruto for the time being to watch over the cart and the people lining up for a meal, 'This place really does good business.' He thought to himself with a big smile. That was good that so many people in the world knew how spectacular ramen was.

It was also a gorgeous spot. Aside from the roads that joined and separated at that very point, there was a view of a sprawling grassy hill that sat by a pristine, blue body of running water that most people chose to go over to and sit down by while they took a rest and ate.

"You bored up here Naruto-chan?" Ayame asked, poking her head out of the hatch during a lull in customers.

"Nah, I'm fine." Naruto assured her with a grin. After dropping his guard a bit around the civilian teenager, Naruto was just as nice as she knew he'd be, "I can sit up here and watch out for stuff. The last few times you and Teuchi-san stopped I got to train a bit, so I've got to do my job right?"

Ayame opened her mouth to say more but was cut off by a shout from back inside, "Ayame, you can play with Naruto after we pack up! Come back down and help with the cooking!" After hearing her father requesting her assistance, Ayame just spared Naruto a wave and went back inside.

Customers just kept coming though, and Naruto had to wonder how much money they were making as time dragged on. Naruto felt the need to count the number of people, and he could only shake his head in amazement when the number served had pushed past one hundred.

As he watched over everything going on around him, Naruto noticed that someone's eyes were on him and looked over at a girl his age standing out of line and looking up at him with curiosity shining in her steel-grey eyes.

She had brown hair put up in two buns with bangs falling over her forehead and wore a pink sleeveless blouse with yellow straps or whatever on the chest keeping it closed. She had dark green pants and blue sandals on her feet. Much like Naruto, she had a kunai pouch on her right thigh, "Are you a ninja?" She asked as she looked up at Naruto.

Naruto just squinted down at her and scratched the side of his face, "Uh, does it matter?" He then had to roll off of the back of the cart when some shuriken were hurled at his head, "Hey!" He shouted as he stomped around the cart and got into the girl's face, "What the hell was that?"

It would have probably been a bit intimidating if he was at least her height, but sadly he came up about four or five inches short. Damn it. Why couldn't he grow already?

"You are a ninja." The girl said, sounding quite smug at proving that point by forcing Naruto to dodge or eat a chest full of metal, "I don't know why you're so mad. I made sure that I would have missed even if you didn't move."

The sight of how pleased she seemed to be at proving her point left Naruto at an immediate loss for words, "…Who are you supposed to be?"

"Tenten." The tomboyish girl said, grabbing Naruto's hand and shaking it as a greeting, "So what clan are you from?"

"What makes you think I'm in a clan?"

"The big spiral thing on your shirt. That's a clan insignia isn't it?" She noted the blank look on Naruto's face and laughed slightly at his expression, "You're kind of a dummy aren't you?"

It definitely wasn't a Senju or Uchiha marking, which every living person in Hi no Kuni would know on sight, but the girl knew a clan insignia when she saw one. Still, as proud as Naruto was of being an Uzumaki Clan ninja, he was told repeatedly by Kakashi to do his best to make sure that he didn't go around spouting his clan of origin when he was alone.

"So…" Naruto said, trying to change the subject without getting into his surname, "Are you a ninja? What clan are _you_ from?"

"I don't have a clan." Tenten said with a sad bit of a smile that got Naruto to frown, "I just live around here, and one day two years ago or something, a man stopped around here for a while. He was a ninja too, and he didn't have a clan either so he taught me some basic stuff." She reached out and brushed at Naruto's hair, "He looked a lot like you actually. That's why I came over here."

"What was his name?" Naruto asked, a bit in awe of the fact that she might have seen who he thought she'd seen, "Was it Minato-something?"

"Namikaze Minato-sama!" Tenten said brightly, "You do know him!"

She knew his dad. Holy shit. That was literally the best news he'd heard in over two weeks. He'd have given her a huge hug if that wouldn't have been totally weird. Also she referred to him in the exact same way that Kakashi did.

And she was his age.

…

Oh, if it turned out that Tenten was his daughter or something he now had a new reason to keep searching for Minato; to cut his goddamn pecker off for leaving his mom all alone in Uzu no Kuni without word for ten years and spreading his seed across the world.

It was totally insensitive, but Naruto needed to ask for peace of mind. Placing his hands on Tenten's shoulders he tried not to mince words, "Do you know who your parents are?"

Tenten raised an eyebrow in confusion as to why that mattered, but she nodded, "Yeah. They died a few years before that. A casualty of one of the bigger Senju/Uchiha battles. I'm not a ninja from my parents or anything."

Oh thank Kami. But that was really sad though. And just before it could begin to show on Naruto's face and he could comment on it, Tenten just shook her head and calmly removed Naruto's hands from keeping a hold on her.

She was far from the only sob story of a similar ilk that one could find wandering around in this world. It was the kind of world where living past thirty was a major accomplishment. Naruto had been told by Kushina and later by Kakashi just how messed up the Elemental Nations were, but this was the first time he was actually seeing it.

Looking around, Naruto could actually make out that it was true once he started paying attention. He couldn't see a single customer out there that he'd guess as being any older than twenty-five at the oldest. The oldest person he'd even seen so far was the man inside of the ramen cart wearing the white robe similar to Ayame's with the white hat serving food; Teuchi. That was the oldest person he'd seen thus far, and he was only forty-one!

It was true so far, that living to thirty thing. That was horrible! In the Uzumaki Clan village he didn't think there were many old people then, but there were way more than he was seeing now! Was it going to be like this everywhere?

"I can show you the battlefield if you want to." Tenten said a bit sadly, "It's… not far. A few miles away. The land still hasn't really recovered yet. It's no Valley of the End or anything, but it's still a pretty ugly scar on the earth."

"That's okay." Naruto said, giving her the biggest grin he could muster given the somewhat morbid circumstances, "I've gotta stay with the cart. I'm the bodyguard you know! I can't really leave it."

And that put things back into perspective for Tenten. The original reason that she'd run out to the cart to begin with that day upon hearing from the nearby village that there was a travelling ramen cart that had set up shop and was selling to travelers passing through, "There are bandits around here."

She'd originally come to warn the owners of the cart, and if need be finally put some of the training she'd been doing to use to fight the bandits that had been killing and stealing from people on this highway for the last year or so.

It was terrifying to think of, to go and fight people that had already killed a bunch of others, but the world was already a terrible enough place for most of the people living in it without the weak needing to be subjected to that kind of life around here. There wasn't any need for people making existence any more miserable for the populace than it already was.

"I can beat up bandits." Naruto said with a shrug. He'd had some missions in Uzu no Kuni where he and his mother had run across some bad guys, and even though she did the lion's share of the fighting by far, as in roughly 94% of the ruffians that were come across were handled by Kushina, in the eight situations where they'd been in real battles Naruto had fought as well.

They didn't have chakra, but they were grown men and he'd been eight years old when he fought his first one.

"These people use chakra." Tenten said, knowing the difference between some highwaymen and people that were actually dangerous to those that knew how to defend themselves as a ninja, "They're actually strong."

"How do you know?" Naruto asked only for him to receive his answer from a third party.

"Because she already tried to fight us before."

Chattering amongst the people came before they started to clear out away from the ramen cart at the sight of three individuals coming up. What Naruto didn't get was why people were running away from three people that didn't look that much older than him, maybe two or three years.

One walked with something of a hunch. A boy with a lavender poncho with extremely long sleeves, a straw raincoat on his back, snake-patterned pants, and a head covered in bandages like a mummy with the exception of his left eye. Naruto could understand that one at least. That was a freaky-looking guy.

The second boy of the group looked a lot like a run-of-the-mill thug with sunken black eyes, spiky black hair, a beige shirt with a red kanji for death on the front of it, tight black wristbands, snake-patterned pants, and a snake-patterned scarf.

The last was a girl that was kind of pretty, with long black hair that almost reached her feet tied with a small bow at the end. She wore pale green zip-up vest and snake-patterned pants and a scarf.

Weird kids, but there was something threatening about their presence Naruto had to admit, "Do you guys want ramen?" Hey, for all he knew they _could_ have been customers. Tenten's hard palming of her forehead let him know that he was way off-base, "…Guess not."

"Oh Kami, he really is some kind of idiot." She muttered to herself under her breath.

"This is the bodyguard?" The dark-haired boy that looked like a thug asked, pointing a thumb at Naruto with a laugh, "He's a total runt. I don't know whether to burp him or get Kin to breast feed him." He got a hard punch from the girl for that remark but he only laughed harder.

The mummy boy who seemed to be the leader stepped forward, leaning strangely ahead with his arms hanging downward, sleeves dragging on the ground, "Let's be civil about this today since it is still light outside and all. If your little ramen cart forks over all of its money and valuables we won't kill you. And that'll be your only warning."

"Yeah?" Naruto asked, knees bending and fists clenching to get ready for a fight. Three-on-one? That was going to suck, "I'll give you one warning too. Go away and I won't kick your asses to the coastline."

The three would-be assailants all shared looks of amusement between each other before the girl of the bunch leaned forward in a patronizing motion and looked over at Tenten, "Aww, you didn't tell him what we did to you last year when we first showed up and you tried to play hero did you?"

"It was three-on-one." Tenten said, bristling at the apparent reminder of something that she wasn't particularly proud of, "I could take any of you in a one-on-one fight!" Unfortunately things didn't always shake out that way, and it seemingly wouldn't again today.

"But it's not, and it won't be." The girl, Kin was her name, said with a pitiful shake of her head, "That little sense of justice or whatever you call it isn't as strong as your sense of self-preservation, otherwise you would have accepted the offer we gave you after we almost killed you the first time. You could have joined you know."

"Oi!" Naruto shouted, feeling quite forgotten and offended that he had been, "Yo! Ramen cart! Me! You threatening! Gonna kick your asses! Remember?"

The mummy boy just chuckled deeply and gestured his head for the spiky-haired boy, "Well Zaku you heard him. Show this baby how real being a shinobi can be, even for kids like him."

Zaku walked forward, cracking his knuckles as he seemed to tower over Naruto, "Well it's not really gonna be a lesson he can take with him anywhere, except to the afterlife. Come on runt. Show me what you've got."

Naruto was going to step forward to fight when Tenten grabbed his arm to keep him back, "I wouldn't. These guys are dangerous people. They will kill you if you lose."

The blond looked at her and then back at the ramen cart, taking note of the concerned faces of Teuchi and Ayame, Naruto turned back to Zaku and got Tenten to let go of him, "I guess I'll have to win then."

"Make it quick would you?" Kin called out to Zaku from the sidelines as her partner squared off with the diminutive Uzumaki Clan member, "I don't want to be out here all night."

And that next bit of underestimation was the last straw as far as Naruto's temper went, as he outright attacked Zaku with a straight-ahead dash and a punch that Zaku crossed his arms over his body to defend. He blocked but slid back a few feet on the dirt road, "Ooh, the runt isn't that slow."

As he blocked, Naruto squinted at the sight of something embedded in the palms of Zaku's hands, 'Are those tubes, or pipes, or what are those?' While he was thinking he was almost caught off-guard when Zaku retaliated and came at him in return, delivering a knee to Naruto's belly that lifted him off of the ground due to the height of the attacker and the recipient, "Guh!"

"He isn't that fast either, or that tough apparently." Kin pointed out with a laugh at Naruto's expense as she saw him go limp over Zaku's knee, "Would you stop playing with him already?"

"Alright." Zaku grabbed Naruto by his collar and lifted him off of the ground before placing his other hand in front of his face, "I guess blowing his head off would be enough to get the message across. Let me play you a lullaby junior."

All of his posturing to a seemingly unconscious Naruto came back to bite him, literally, as Naruto did. The little ninja seemingly came back to life and bit down on three of Zaku's fingers, eliciting a scream of pain and agony from him as he swore he felt his fingers break instantly from how hard he'd been bitten.

Kin and her mummy-like partner couldn't believe what they were seeing as Zaku ran around the road screaming about getting Naruto off of him. It didn't seem like Naruto was going to let go until he snapped one of those digits off to take home with him.

Eventually Naruto did let go, and crouched to the ground before jumping at him enemy and uncorking a haymaker of a punch that knocked the older ninja down over in front of his teammates, "Grr…" He growled and sneered as he got back up to his feet, wiping away the blood at his lip, "You're dead."

Tenten gasped as she saw Zaku make hand-seals to gain access to some sort of technique, "Be careful! Those are the signs for his jutsu!"

"Too late little girl!" Zaku bellowed, storming in Naruto's direction as the latter pulled out a handful of shuriken to hurl his way in order to deter his direct attack, "Zankuuha (Decapitating Airwaves)!" From the tubes in his hands, he fired out a powerful blast of air faster than Naruto could dodge from his position. His shuriken were blown away, and so was he.

Covering up did little for Naruto as he was knocked away far and hard enough to fall off of the road down the side of a hill.

"Oh no…" Tenten tried to run over to look down and determine Naruto's fate only to be stopped by a trio of senbon being thrown at her before she could reach the hillside, "Enough already!"

"No." The bandaged boy said as the three of them walked together to bear down on Tenten as one, "We warned him, and we warned you too." Tenten quickly drew as many weapons as she could hold and threw them at her enemies only for them to be blown out of the way by Zaku's ninjutsu.

This was how they had handled her so easily during their first encounter. None of her projectiles could reach her targets since Zaku could just blow them all away. Fine. She'd worked on what she'd do in that situation after being defeated the last time.

Tenten pulled out a scroll and suddenly unsealed a short staff with a metal weight attached to the end, "It won't be that easy this time."

Kin smirked and threw more senbon Tenten's way only for her to deflect them with a skillful spin of her staff prior to her directly rushing Kin who hadn't been expecting a follow-up after such a smooth defense. She really wasn't going to let them dictate the fight this time.

The bandaged one stepped in the way and blocked Tenten's staff strike with his right arm, revealing that he kept a metal gauntlet with multiple large pores on it, "Well you got better." He said as his arm stung from the power behind her swing, "But you forgot about something, or maybe you never knew about it to begin with."

"That's so cruel Dosu." Kin remarked from behind the human mummy, "You know you didn't have to use that on her for us to win this."

Tenten didn't know what he was talking about until she realized that the ringing clang of her hitting the gauntlet was lasting longer than it should have, and it was making her feel dizzy and ill, "What is this supposed to… I don't…"

"Sound waves amplified and sent straight into your ears honey." The dark kunoichi continued as she moved to the back of the team formation, "It's dangerous right? A little more subtle than what all those other clans throw around out there isn't it?"

"Kyoumeisen (Resonating Echo Drill)." Dosu explained, "Yes, I didn't have to use this the first time for us to beat you down. But I think your tenacity deserved a gift. To show you what you could have had if you'd have accepted our offer to join the Snake Clan after we showed you our strength already. You could have been given the same level of power."

"I don't need to rely on other people. I can be strong without handouts." Tenten said, dropping to the ground, breathing heavily to try and settle her stomach to keep from vomiting as she was seeing double, "And if attacking people that can't fight back is what you call power you can have it."

Zaku flexed out his hands and laughed at her mindset, "Tch. Well I guess you're happy being a weakling. And we all know what happens to weaklings." He extended his hands forward as Dosu backed away to leave her to her fate, "They get blown away."

A sharp whistle directed his attention away from the downed girl and all of the bandit ninjas turned to see Naruto standing up again, looking rather pissed off.

"Well look who woke up." Zaku said, cracking his neck as he held one hand down still aiming at Tenten, "Come on again runt. I only need one hand to take you on. I'll do you a favor and kill both of you at the same time so you don't feel too lonely in the afterlife."

"Better idea." Naruto said before spinning around in a circle. In a puff of smoke, he hurled a massive pair of shuriken at Zaku who merely grinned and leaned out of the way, allowing both of them to miss. They even veered past Dosu without making contact with him or Kin as well, "Crap."

His laughter was loud and mocking in return, "Oh man you suck! Oh, oh… this is-. Ah man! You are the _worst_ ninja I've ever seen!"

His taunting was cut short when both he and Dosu heard a dull thump on the ground and turned around to see Kin facedown and unconscious with only two puffs of smoke dissipating around her body to mark that anything had happened to her.

"What the hell?" Zaku's eyes almost bulged out of his skull. Nothing had happened! Those shuriken hadn't made contact with anything! They weren't anywhere around, and they hadn't hit the ground either, "What did you-?" Looking down at where he had Tenten he no longer saw her there, "What the hell?"

"What, what, what." Naruto droned, somehow with Tenten back next to him again, holding her head that was still smarting from Dosu's attack, "You were standing still. I know how to aim a shuriken."

"How'd you take out Kin without either of us seeing?" Dosu asked, narrowing his eye at Naruto who just stuck his middle finger up at him as an answer, "I don't like you."

"I don't care. You guys are creepy anyway." Naruto replied. He wasn't going to give away a bread and butter combination like a pair of Kage Bunshin combined with a hell of a Henge if his opponents didn't figure it out already. He put some real effort behind his emphatic rude gesture before looking over at Tenten who was slowly recovering, "Are you alright?"

Tenten shook her head as things finally started clearing up for her. She definitely didn't recall getting hit with Dosu's jutsu the last time around, but Naruto had managed to take out Kin before she could use her jutsu.

That was entirely unexpected, "Wait." The bun-haired girl said reaching out and touching Naruto to make sure that it was the real deal, "Zaku hit you with his air wave thing. How did you get up? He sent you flying!" She then noticed that he was absolutely soaked, "You landed in the river didn't you?"

"I blocked the hit and the water broke my fall." Naruto said in confirmation, but even so it still hurt like hell, not that he was willing to sell any injury at the moment, "Can we finish this already?" Naruto was staring right at Dosu, "Take your pick. Which one do you want? Blowhard jackass or mummy-man."

"Ah…" Tenten thought before shrugging and making her selection without saying anything, instead she just rushed directly at Zaku.

If the odds were even and she was going to pick one or the other she'd choose the one that looked the most normal. She'd also pick the one that Naruto already proved he could lay out. Maybe she could do it too.

He wasn't that tough all alone. Naruto had shown that much. She'd been training so hard so that she'd never lose so easily to someone again, and numbers did matter in battle. It was fortunate that Naruto managed to even it up. Where before she couldn't get the thought of being outnumbered out of her head, her chest swelled with confidence now that things were all square.

"Tch." Zaku shoved his hands into the dirt before releasing the air from his palms again, "Zankuuha (Decapitating Air Waves)!" He blew a trail into the ground that was meant to explode upwards underneath Tenten, but she was quicker than anticipated, "She wasn't that fast last time!" But last time had been a year ago.

He was forced to avoid swings of Tenten's odd staff, taking care to dodge the metal weights on the end of it. All Tenten could do during their first run-in was throw weapons and move like a ninja. How did she learn boujutsu?

"You can't keep dodging supersonic blasts!" Zaku bellowed, taking aim again and again, firing with each hand and missing. The actual use of the jutsu might have been supersonic, but his ability to aim it sure wasn't, "Hold still and die!"

Tenten spun her short staff in one hand as she seemed to be timing Zaku's blasts, 'One shot per hand, alternating, gives me two seconds to counter between attacks. The range of the jutsu is fifteen feet.' Breaking it down in her head she waited for a good step of hers between blasts before stopping on a dime and swinging her staff right at Zaku, only for the metal weight on the end to fly off attached to a chain.

He couldn't muster his jutsu fast enough to blow it away and took a large metal lump right in the face. It cracked his teeth, caused him skull fractures, and put him down in a bloody mess that didn't get back up.

Hitting a button on her short staff, Tenten retracted the chained weight with a smile on her face, "How'd you like my Kusari Fuubou (Chain Wind Staff)? Customized it myself." No response, "Don't worry, I'll wait for an answer."

Vindication felt so sweet. Was he dead? She couldn't tell, but it didn't matter. He was going to kill her if she hadn't beaten him and they started the fight to begin with.

She wondered how Naruto's fight was going.

XxX

(Moments Ago)

Naruto had expected an answer from Tenten, not for her to pick her mark and take off and fight him without even saying anything. Meh, he'd have probably done the same thing given the circumstances.

So that left him with Dosu. Fun.

Well there was only one thing left to do; kick his ass.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)!" Naruto created ten clones that all drew kunai and immediately attacked Dosu. There was no way he would be able to outmaneuver them all. His posture was terrible, even in the middle of battle. That meant that his ability to move would be slow, right?

Not really.

Dosu was faster than him and showed it by ducking and dodging through the straight-ahead attack of the clones, avoiding slashes and stabs until he allowed one to come close enough to bounce off of his gauntlet, "My Melody Arm is just too powerful for someone to fight against in close without being a taijutsu master."

Naruto's clones fell to the effects of the sound waves of the gauntlet, stumbling around dizzily and some even vomiting on the ground before dispelling as Dosu walked right through them. Well wasn't that annoying.

"That was an A-rank jutsu." Naruto deadpanned, trying to think of something useful to win with.

"Well when it's being used by an E-rank ninja it might as well not be." Dosu replied, "You fight like a child."

Looking around as if he could have possibly been speaking to anyone else, Naruto eventually figured that he had been referring to him and proceeded to state the obvious, "I'm 10. What do you want me to fight like? I think I'm pretty good actually."

"Statistically someone has to."

"That's a real jerk thing to say. Why would you do that?"

"Because I'm trying to kill you." Dosu said before banging on his gauntlet again and rushing at Naruto who was trying to make every effort to stay away from him, "That's useless you know. If you can hear the vibrations it's already too late." Thus proven when Naruto stumbled over his own feet due to Dosu's sound jutsu disorienting him, "When it comes to sound, I don't have to touch you to hurt you."

"I… know…" Naruto grit out as he stood back up ignoring the pounding in his head with every echo of the gauntlet. Reaching into his backpack he pulled out a foldable fuuma shuriken and held it up as the clamor started fading out of his head, 'Okay, so he can't make the sound last. He can control it, but he can't maintain it any longer than he can make the noise to start with.'

Which was why his gauntlet was designed to be somewhat hollow, so that the reverberation could last long enough for him to control it into Naruto's ears.

Dosu simply stood in place. Naruto's shuriken was a pretty nasty-looking weapon, but it would never touch him. Still though, if he let it fly past him and took his eyes off of either it or Naruto he would pay for it the way that they did earlier with Kin going down in defeat without them ever finding out how.

Naruto got his sense of balance back under control enough to aim and let his shuriken fly, "Dodge this!"

Instead of trying to move, Dosu just lifted his gauntlet and deflected it with a resounding clang that immediately hurt Naruto in return due to the sound that he'd pre-prepared to launch with his chakra, "I-." Any smart remark he was about to make died in his throat immediately thereafter as he felt a blow to his chest, smooth, sharp, and forceful enough to knock him back a few steps, "But I-? How?"

Sticking out of his chest was a second four-bladed fuuma shuriken. That didn't make any sense. How did he land that? A genjutsu? No way.

"Kage Shuriken no Jutsu (Shadow Shuriken Jutsu)." Naruto said as he ran over to retrieve his first deflected shuriken, "A second shuriken flying under the first one in its shadow. Nice right? Kakashi taught me that one."

"W-Who?" Dosu asked before his single visible eye rolled back in his head and he fell back to his death.

Naruto frowned but walked over to Dosu to yank his shuriken out of the downed young ninja's chest with a gross crunch and squish. Tenten walked up as he went over into the grass off of the road and wiped the blood off of the weapon, "You killed him."

"Yeah…" Naruto said, folding his weapons back up and resealing them away, "One sec." He said before throwing up right then and there. It had been the first time he'd actually killed someone.

While some of the impact was taken out of it because Dosu's face had mostly been covered, the blood spilling out on the ground, the feeling of the rib bone he broke pulling the shuriken out, and the weight of his body hitting the ground for the final time couldn't be prepared for. Killing a human in battle wasn't like killing an animal while hunting.

Tenten was grossed out, but rubbed Naruto's back regardless to give him some sort of relief. The ramen stand was still easily in sight, as were the people inside of it who had seen the whole battle. It wasn't the most impressive ninja fight of all time, but the fact that kids had engaged in that sort of violence would have to have left an impact on them.

"Where the hell is Kakashi?" Naruto asked, letting his stomach settle from the bout of sudden nausea.

XxX

(Nearby Hidden in the Trees)

A young man with long silver hair, a frayed blue vest, and dark colored pants gnashed his teeth angrily at the sight of his three charges being defeated by some puny blond kid and the girl with the weapons that he'd sicced them on when they first came to the area around a year ago.

"That girl didn't have that much inherent talent when they beat her then. And where the hell did that boy come from?"

He wasn't that good though, so he himself could go out there and pick him off. He could pick the both of them off and salvage something of their loss.

"Recruiting weak pawns like that…" The man said to himself in disgust at the loss of the younger ninja trio, "…How can I ever get Orochimaru to grant me with the power I want if I can't even bring him kids with true skill."

The first time they faced the slightest bit of adversity in battle and they folded. Absolutely horrible. And he'd wasted a year training those three that he'd recruited. What was it all for? To let them get beaten by two snot-nosed preteens?

Reaching for a large shuriken that he kept on his back he endeavored to take a shot at the two of them right then and there while they were walking back down the road to get to the ramen cart. It would be so easy. There was no wind, and it was a clear shot from where he was hidden in the trees. Just a single throw with the correct trajectory.

"Well Naruto didn't need my help did he? And he made a little friend too." Turning around, the silver-haired man found a kunai placed right to his throat with another silver-haired man in a facemask hanging upside-down from an overhanging branch. How did he get that close, and why did it look like he was smiling under that mask? "Looks like I made one as well. What's your name?"

"M-Mizuki." He was caught dead-to-rights. This man for all intents and purposes had his life in his hands, "I know you. You, you're 'Copy Ninja' Kakashi. There's no mistaking your appearance!"

"I really don't like being famous, but I guess it can't be helped." Kakashi mumbled to himself before addressing Mizuki, "Now, guess what's about to happen?"

"Y-You're going to kill me?"

"Oh no." Thank goodness. The soft-hearted fool was going to let him go. Oh he'd take this straight to Orochimaru and the rest of the Snake Clan and they would blacklist Kakashi and put him on their hit list forever. He'd never survive, "I'm going to interrogate you and then I might kill you depending on what I find."

"What? No!"

"Oh it's happening. Now if you're good it won't hurt a bit."

Kakashi lifted the plated headband over his left eye and Mizuki let out a shriek of terror at being caught in Kakashi's Sharingan genjutsu.

XxX

(Back With the Ichiraku Ramen Cart)

Naruto, Tenten, Teuchi, and Ayame all paused in what they were doing when they heard a cry of mortality echo out in the open air from no discernable location. Still though, it sent chills down the spines of the civilians, "Uh." Teuchi said, sweating slightly after all of the action they'd come across that evening, "Anyone gonna check on that?"

Instead of trotting off to do so, Naruto just chuckled nervously and shook his head, "My job's to protect the cart you know? I can't really leave you guys by yourselves until Kakashi comes back. Just in case."

"It's okay to be scared Naruto-chan, as long as you keep your big sister safe." Ayame said, snatching Naruto up off of the ground in a big hug while he kicked and flailed to get free without hurting her.

"I'm not scared of anything!"

Tenten just stared oddly at the byplay before making an observation, "She's your sister? She doesn't look anything like you."

"I'm his sister in spirit." Ayame said with a sly smile before putting Naruto down and going over to Tenten and lowering herself enough to be at eye-level with her, "And I'll be yours too. Thank you for helping Naruto-chan protect us." She even spared Tenten a full bow, "You didn't have to do that for us."

It was awkward for the young kunoichi to be praised in such a way by such a pretty older girl, "T-Thanks, but that was just as much for me as it was just to help. I was thinking for a long time that I couldn't be a decent ninja because I don't come from a clan, and Minato-sama only taught me basic stuff firsthand."

"So that staff thing that you used?" Naruto asked, remembering her Chain Wind Staff, "Dad didn't teach you that or give that to you?"

Tenten shook her head and blushed even more that Naruto seemed to be amazed by her ninja tool, "I made it myself. I like weapons." She said quietly as if it were something embarrassing, "But Naruto, you're saying that Minato-sama is your dad! That's so cool, you're so lucky!"

"Yep!" Naruto said with a big, wide grin, "…And I never met him either. That's so awesome." Well that was certainly a mood-killer, "I'm glad you like him, but I've never seen the guy one time in my whole life."

That was no good. The entire reason Minato trained Tenten to begin with when she kept bugging him about it was because he said she reminded him of the fact that he had a son. She always imagined the son of a man like that to be an incredible shinobi.

But Naruto didn't seem that much more advanced than she did. Sure, he knew a pretty elite jutsu to make solid clones of himself and had some other cool tricks, but it was clear that he was still just a kid. He didn't seem a bit like his father aside from the way that he looked. Even so, he managed to save her when the chips were down, and she was grateful for that.

Tenten set a hand on Naruto's shoulder and smiled, "Well I remember him telling me that he was going to work his way west, towards the desert. Why would he want to go to the desert?" She asked, rolling her eyes when she merely got a shrug from Naruto, "Is there anything you do know?"

Naruto had to think about it for a second before coming up with his answer, "Kicking ass."

"Okay seriously, you didn't fight that good." Said the weapon-loving little girl with her hands sternly on her hips, "You let Zaku and Dosu get some good shots in on you, and if the whole team hadn't been totally underestimating us the whole time that would have been way harder."

At that moment, Kakashi appeared on the site in a Shunshin that scared everyone, including Naruto who even tried to stab him before he came out of the whirlwind. It was blocked by Kakashi grabbing his wrist of course, but he still tried, "Don't do that. But it's good to see that you made a friend with such a good head on her shoulders. It's a refreshing change of pace to see a child with some humility."

"You weren't even there." Naruto said, throwing his arms up victoriously, "I was so awesome when I tricked those guys the first time, I think I got a case of awesome-poisoning."

"Was that before or after you had to bite that one boy to get free? I couldn't tell."

"Gurk." So he _had_ been watching. That begged the question of why the hell didn't he help?

"Exactly." Kakashi said with an eye-smile, "And to answer the question that you didn't ask, I wanted to see if you could handle yourself in a fight. You need a lot of work, but seeing as how I didn't have to step in I'd say that you're passable… for now anyway." Like he said before, Naruto would be a work in progress. There was nothing wrong with that. He was still extremely young.

Besides, any ten year-old with the ability to learn an A-rank ninjutsu over the course of a day was something that just couldn't be left alone, even if he was hard-up for improvement in many other places. And he'd already learned a simple shurikenjutsu that Kakashi had taught him as a method of sleight of hand to keep him busy with training.

You nurtured a potential powerhouse like that, _especially_ when he was a jinchuuriki. Kakashi didn't know the first thing about handling a jinchuuriki and didn't know anyone that did, but he figured he'd have time to learn.

It couldn't be that hard to teach a kid how to not get himself murdered in the real world could it?

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Tenten walking away and cleared his throat to get her to stop and come back around, "And where are you going young lady?" Tenten went wide-eyed and pointed lamely in the direction of the village nearby, "Oh, I was about to ask you if you wanted to come along with us, but if that was what you really wanted to do-."

"Wait, you want me to come with you?" Tenten asked out of disbelief, "W-Why?"

"You helped my idiot charge out of a real pinch, and you don't look like you really want to go back to that place." Kakashi explained. "So how about it? Do you want to come with me and Naruto here to find Minato-sama?"

Well, he half-explained his reason for wanting to take her with him. He wasn't going to bring up the fact that there was no way he was going to leave that girl by herself when this was apparently a developmental territory for the forces of one of the most terrifying ninja forces in the modern world, and that they'd just beaten up three top prospects and their handler.

At least that was what he'd gleaned from interrogating Mizuki. Orochimaru, one of the biggest legends of the current era, hired him to scout for unattached children with the potential for great strength. He would have tried to get more, but there was apparently a mental defense inside of him that turned his head to liquid jelly before he could delve for deeper secrets.

Poor bastard. Thankfully he was in the woods. The kids didn't need to see that.

Aside from that, mercifully needing to whisk her the hell out of there in case things went from dangerous to downright unsurvivable wasn't the only reason to take her.

Tenten had given them a lead in a possibly right direction to locate Minato. West, into the desert nation of Kaze no Kuni. That was to be their destination to begin searching for Minato after they made it the rest of the way through Hi no Kuni. Even if they didn't find him there it was better than what they had before, and it sounded like the kind of place that Minato would go to campaign for his cause amongst the Sand Nomads.

And then there was the fact that she'd make a pretty nifty sparring partner for Naruto. Someone around his level to work with and train with, and another person around to help him make sure that Naruto didn't get himself killed.

That girl's use of that staff. Weapon-use like that wasn't very common. Very few ninjas learned how to use much more than kunai or shuriken. He had to test her out some, but he was quite certain that the odd short staff she'd utilized was just the tip of her bukijutsu potential.

Ayame and Teuchi were both all for it. Ayame because that meant she got another new adorable ninja kid to dote over, and Teuchi because having another ninja around (even a little one) meant that less scary stuff would occur within dangerous proximity of his daughter and his livelihood in the ramen cart.

…At least in theory. Further down the line in hindsight it wouldn't turn out to work that way in reality, but for now the man could dream about being insulated with the protection of three ninjas instead of just two as he spread ramen-based goodness across the badlands of the Elemental Nations.

"Of course it's just an offer." Kakashi said, allowing Tenten an out if she really didn't want to go with them, "You don't have to-."

"I'm _so_ in!" There was no need because Tenten accepted enthusiastically, "Let's go right now!" She wanted to leave that place behind and be a true ninja for real, 'I'm gonna prove that being a woman and not being a clan ninja doesn't mean that I'm not just as good as a male ninja or a clan shinobi.'

It would have to wait until tomorrow morning though, because there wasn't really any travelling light left available to them. Still, it was as good a start as any.

* * *

Major Clan Information

Senju Clan  
Leader: Senju Tsunade

**Population: 5/5  
Military Strength: 5/5  
Economy: 3.5/5  
Notable Traits: Boasts direct descent from the Rikudou Sennin. Strong-willed, with great physical energy. Prodigious in all skills of the ninja arts instead of specializing in one facet of any particular field. Potential for vastly powerful Mokuton kekkei genkai amongst certain members.  
Area of Operation: All of Hi no Kuni and most immediate surrounding nations.**

* * *

**Okay, so I did all three of these together to give the story some backbone as I usually do when I start something new. Just a little something to give the story some padding to sink your teeth into a bit.**

**The clans are going to have a bigger role going forward, I just had to establish who the core travelling characters were going to be and the first leg of how this story is going to go. So I hope it intrigued you, and I hope I can get my idea to play out as beautifully over time as it seems to be in my head right now. **

**Later, Kenchi out.**


	4. Casting Lots

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. It owns me. This much is clear due to the sheer amount of hours that have been put into these damned stories. What is wrong with me?

* * *

_After a lot of time dealing with ninjas of all sorts of clans that see me in the same negative light for what I'm trying to accomplish you kind of get a feel for what makes them tick in a way. After doing this whole thing for a while, going around trying to get some kind of support for my dream, you begin to understand why it's just so difficult to get others on-board with the idea. It's a lack of understanding._

_You don't need to accept everything about someone or believe what they believe to understand them, but it's hard for people to do that. The clans populating this world usually have deep integral differences in their cultures down to the root. People of other clans look at that and have trouble trying to relate that to themselves. _

"_Why do your people have clan markings in such odd places?" or "Your women do _what_ with their leisure time?" _

_And those are just the things on the surface. Things get way more complex and stranger to many when they look past the surface and start paying attention to actual clan practices. They simply don't understand. They don't see a way to relate these things to themselves and their lives. What makes sense to them doesn't to other clans, and the same goes in reverse. Things that you can't explain or understand are scary, and it's human nature to take the things that you're afraid of and try to destroy them. That's why it's so easy to come to blows in our society._

_The first thing that I wanted was just to understand. To find out the motivations of all of these different clans, why they did the things that they did, why they lived the way they did, used the kind of jutsu that they did, maybe learn a little of their clan history if they were willing to tell it. Just as a way to understand._

_Could you tell me? Could you help me understand you better, help me put what you do and why you do it in a logical light so that I can put it up against my life and finally get it? If more people were willing to sit down and just hash things out on that level, to the extent where they could begin to say things like, "Oh, I understand why you do that now. Yeah, that actually makes sense."_

_You don't have to incorporate things from other cultures into your life. You don't even have to accept different things from other cultures. But everyone should strive to at least understand before demonizing them._

_Between that and a quality spicy mayonnaise, we're not going to get rid of all of this racism and clan separation overnight… but we'll at least start putting some big dents in it._

_-Namikaze Minato_

**Chapter 4: Casting Lots**

* * *

Sunrise was usually the time that Kushina would wake up at. She'd always gotten up at that time when she was younger, because it had always been a good time to train, to get it all out of the way for the day so that she could have the rest of the daylight to do useful things or things that were more fun. After she had Naruto she didn't get much sleep through his early months to begin with, but after that she would sometimes wake earlier than him to just get a glimpse of him while he slept.

Such a litter terror… you would never know it from watching him sleep, but damn it you would when he was awake.

She'd get a few good minutes of that and then she'd kick his ass out of bed to wake him up and play Mama Kushina for the day.

It was a bit of a habit that she hadn't been able to break, until it was forced to be broken by her son's necessary exile. So that left her with the habit of waking up super-early in the morning without anything that she needed to tend to for the first time in her adult life. No missions, no son to feed or terrorize out of bed and into action. Nothing.

All she had to do was train. Nagato was restricting her to the mansion without saying so, but since it was a house arrest that was going unsaid there was also nothing that was restricting her from training. There was plenty of space for it outside, especially early in the morning.

She needed to work all of the energy she had off somehow. There wasn't any use to waste all of that energy that she still had, even if there wasn't anything really productive she could do.

"Well you're a diligent one."

Kushina paused in the practice of molding the chakra for the jutsu she'd been working on and paid attention to the arrival of the Senju Clan leader watching her training as she entered the area, "Tsunade-sama." She said quietly sparing her a blank smile, "Good morning. What are you doing up at this hour?"

"I could ask you the same thing." Tsunade said as she looked around and tried to figure out the nature of what Kushina's training had been since she hadn't caught her in the process of actually using a jutsu, "Everyone else is just starting to stir, and you look like you've been at this for at least a half-hour."

"Good guess."

"I'm going to have to ask you not to smile at me like that. It's so phony it might as well be Henged onto your face."

Good, because Kushina didn't like smiling like a Stepford when she really wanted to glower. She just didn't want to offend a clan head, "Well sorry, but there's not really much for me to be excited about, Senju visit or not."

Tsunade nodded and sat down on a bench off against a castle wall, beckoning Kushina to come and sit with her. The redhaired mother looked around, wondering why Tsunade was awake and her guards weren't, but she got up and walked over. Once again, she wasn't going to offend a clan head. Not while she was already on thin ice anyway.

A woman twenty years Kushina's senior, Tsunade was the person that every kunoichi in the world tried to measure themselves against. Kushina could include herself in that group, as even now she was instinctively sizing up just how well she'd do if forced to battle the legendary lady.

"So it's your son isn't it?" Tsunade asked, getting Kushina to stiffen, "I already know. Nagato-dono was very forthcoming with what we needed to begin putting word out to locate him. I've already sent a hawk back to the rest of my clan to have them on the lookout."

"Why would you want to come out here and talk to me about this?" The violet-eyed redhead glared at the leader of the world's most vaunted clan, "The last thing I want to talk about is how the two clans that are supposed to be my family and distant relatives want to hunt my kidnapped son down just to ritualistically sacrifice him. I don't want to be rude to someone that could probably have me killed, but unless you want to hear me try to pick which one's worse, I don't want to speak about it."

Tsunade just rolled her eyes. She couldn't have Kushina killed, even if seeing a mother that was apparently conflicted between clan and family ties act the way she expected upset her. If there was one thing she knew that would bring out the lion in Nagato it would be messing with that woman. She'd picked up on that much when the conversation on new jinchuuriki Naruto drifted in the direction of his origin.

Yes, she'd learned something about his origin that was of interest, and was also more than likely a good explanation of why things were the way that they were with her family.

"You've had a hard time of it since you married Namikaze Minato haven't you?" The busty blonde said, getting a scoff of sorts out of Kushina, "There's a reason your clan has the rules that it does. I don't agree with them, but they have a reason."

"Uh huh."

"Your clan has a lot of powerful fuuinjutsu. I know you're aware of the fact that you're not exactly a popular clan in the world." People were actually afraid of the Uzumaki Clan and what they could potentially be capable of.

Kushina already knew the reason why her marrying Minato was supposed to have been a bad thing, "Yeah, yeah. If one of us married the wrong person we could lose all sorts of clan secrets that could be stolen by other clans and used against us and blah, blah, blah. I know. I heard it every day from EVERYBODY when Minato was in Uzu no Kuni courting me."

And the thing was that they _did_ actually have a point, because Kushina did actually wind up sharing some of her fuuinjutsu knowledge with him. But he shared something else with her in return. He taught her some special things, and he gave her a child before he was basically forced off of the island for his rather controversial views.

Tsunade gave her a wry smile, "The whole origin of the custom is originally meant to be that you can't marry outside of the clan with the exception of civilians. You want to know the original reason?" Kushina just shrugged her shoulders, "It was originally enacted to make sure there wouldn't be any Senju/Uchiha offspring."

"Wow." Kushina said in return. She honestly didn't know about that. Yeah, and as Uzumaki they would be close enough to Senju where that would be a thing for them as well, "What, did that actually come close to happening?"

It had been a gambit from many years prior, an early attempt at peaceful relations between the two clans a few decades after the time of Hashirama and Madara. A proposed marriage to closely interweave the two bloodlines, Senju and Uchiha. A conflict then arose from what was supposed to be an attempt at brokering a truce, all over one reason in particular.

Which side would be the one to claim the result of such a union? In other words, who would the family live with, and who would be the recipients of the offspring?

That was a major deal. Any child born with both Uchiha and Senju blood would have a claim of the strongest possible lineage in all of existence. The fact that it had never even come close to happening before or since was a testament to just how bitter clan feuds, this one in particular, really were.

That fear sort of bled over into the thought of clanless ninjas managing to obtain bloodlines such a way and begin their own clans.

"Minato doesn't want to use clan ties for anything. What he wants doesn't have anything to do with making himself to be anyone's better." Kushina said, feeling like she was explaining the same thing that she'd done thousands of times since opinion on Minato soured over a decade back, "And that doesn't matter right now. This is about Naruto."

"I'll try to make sure he's caught alive so that there's at least a chance he'll survive." Tsunade said, but it did very little if anything at all to console Kushina, "The other option present is to outright kill him."

More or less that just meant that the two options were: kill him, or torture him for days trying to drain the biju from his body which would wind up killing him anyway.

She'd been studying her own seal that she'd put on Naruto since she actually had access to the person she'd placed it on for four days after she'd done it.

To make it as strong as it needed to be to help Naruto's body adjust and to prevent the biju within him from breaking free and definitely killing everything around it when it did, the seal bonded the two so closely that no matter how the extraction was done the shock of losing the biju within him would irreparably damage his chakra network and the organs close by to a fatal extent.

It wouldn't matter if she told anyone in the clan this information or not because they would still try to extract it from him. And if she did inform them of this point she would wind up getting executed or something along those lines, because by then it would be clear that she was the one to make the seal, if she knew something like that about it that no one else could figure.

No, she wasn't going to go out like that. She'd see Naruto again. She'd see Minato again. All she had to do was be patient and be prepared for whatever may come her way. Even if what Konan said was true about volunteering to go out and search for Naruto, if that bitch harmed a hair on her baby's head house arrest be damned she'd find her and make her pay herself.

"I'm going to begin heading back home today." Tsunade said, standing up to conclude the conversation, "There are probably a mountain of things that have piled up while I've been gone, so we can just add this to the very top. Good luck."

Kushina nodded and stood up to bow slightly to the Senju Clan's leader, "You as well Tsunade-sama." 'Me being lucky is the absolute last thing that anyone here wants. It'd mean that I'd have my son safe and sound, biju or not.'

XxX

(Hi no Kuni – Western Countryside)

Waking up in the early morning was something that Naruto was used to living back in his village. It was a bit harder nowadays since they were always on the move and because somehow Ayame always wound up somehow getting a hold of him or Tenten depending on her mood to cuddle with a kid, but anytime he felt like a lazy-bones and wanted to sleep in for long enough to allow Teuchi and Ayame to wake up the thought stuck out in his mind.

His mother. He was laying down in his sleeping roll trying to find an excuse to get a few hours more shuteye when his mother had put herself at risk just to cover his tracks and give him a chance to live.

No, not a chance. If he ever became that kind of despicable person he would rather turn himself in to his clansmen and let them take his life, because he didn't deserve Kushina's potential sacrifice. So no matter what, even if he had to find a way to worm himself out of Ayame's grasp he'd get up, go out, and train until he had to go.

'Got to get my mom back.' Naruto thought to himself, standing in a nice little clearing a few minutes away from where camp had been set up for the night. He'd get in a little training on his own before Tenten came and found him to work alongside him before they'd get back on the road that day, 'Got to get some good training in now while I can. It looks like we're not gonna be stopping much today.'

Upon waking up, Naruto had been greeted with cloudy skies. Ever since picking up Tenten they'd travelled for three days in a westerly direction based on what she had said to try and pick up a more recent trail on how to find Minato. They'd been training together under Kakashi's guidance whenever they'd gotten time to take travelling breaks for a few hours and they'd quickly learned where Tenten's specialties lay.

She was excellent with weapons. Better than Naruto. She threw projectiles better than him to the point where he was seriously jealous, and she could hit anything with anything, not just kunai and shuriken. Anything that could leave her hands with a decent trajectory would hit its mark.

Forty yards away, bullseye.

Moving target, didn't matter, bullseye.

Target behind an obstacle such as a tree, didn't matter, bullseye.

How she managed the last thing, Naruto was totally confused by even days after seeing it. She didn't even know she'd figured it out. Apparently the method she used to deflect her own throw and hit her mark just 'felt right' and he couldn't even dream of replicating the feat.

It wasn't just with throwing things either. Put a weapon in her hands and she at least knew how to utilize it in a respectable manner if not in an overwhelming way. She loved weapons, so much so that she oftentimes contemplated trying to swipe Kakashi's White Light Chakra Saber to try it out for herself. But it was apparently something passed down from Kakashi's deceased father, and she had respect for him so she never felt mischievous enough to do such a thing.

Working with someone his age that actually felt like being around him was really fun he had to admit. If only he'd been able to train with more kids back in the Uzumaki Clan village, those days could have been so much more enjoyable.

Speaking of training, it was time to work on some of the things that Kakashi was trying to beat into his head.

With Tenten it seemed like she had it easier. Kakashi would show her something that he thought she could pick up and let her have at it after a few explanations, showing her how it was meant to be done once or maybe twice. For Naruto it seemed like he had to repetitively hammer his lessons into his skull like a spike.

Kakashi seemed used to training done in the manner that he would comfortably show Tenten, but there was something about how Naruto needed to be taught that he wasn't accustomed to and seemed to have trouble with. He couldn't hold it against Kakashi that he seemed to be better at instructing Tenten than him. In actuality he spent far more time teaching him than her.

Either way, he was doing good in his own humble opinion. Aside from the neat shuriken jutsu that actually won him a battle (that Tenten had also learned shortly thereafter along with a few others, damn her for being good with weaponry), Kakashi had done some other things for his small set of techniques. Hell, Kakashi apparently had 1000 of them or more so there had to be something he could hand off.

'Okay, basic jutsu, one hand-seal.' Naruto thought to himself. The field was full of thirty Narutos standing in a triangle formation all facing each other. He needed to get the jutsu down before he started using it in spars and the like, and this was the best way he could think of.

Kakashi had tried to teach him a jutsu from a few different elemental types. Naruto had tons of chakra, so it wasn't prudent to baby him with low-level stuff. Kushina had already proven that much by throwing Kage Bunshin no Jutsu in his face before sending him off.

He needed to get them into good enough shape to take on people older than them and more used to ninja-based combat before that became a liability later. Both of them weren't afraid to fight, but both of them also weren't used to fighting ninja either. That was going to be a problem if he didn't put them through their paces good and well.

Tenten's levels of chakra weren't nearly as high as Naruto's so Kakashi had to be more selective in what he taught her, playing to her strengths of weaponry for the time being until she was great enough in that area to start shoring up her weaker ones.

In that same respect, you had to give Naruto a jutsu that did what was needed for him. The past week had been a series of trials and errors though, as fire, earth, and lightning-based techniques weren't really the youngster's forte. He knew something of water ninjutsu, but that was mostly because he lived by the sea for his entire life, so not knowing anything with that element would be silly.

The things Kakashi knew that had to do with water were a little bit out of his league though. Naruto could do some things that manipulated prior existing bodies of water, but creating water straight from his own chakra required nature manipulation experience and control that was a little bit over his head.

Kakashi tossed a wind jutsu Naruto's way to see if he could get something going with it. He wasn't going to make the same mistake he made in experimenting with teaching Naruto a fire ninjutsu.

That day really didn't work out well at all for anyone. Naruto used to think fire was kind of cool until the first time he tried spitting it from his mouth and almost burned down a portion of the forest and his lungs. Apparently that wasn't supposed to happen and he'd overloaded the jutsu past what he could control.

"Okay, let's do this. First one to feel it and blow the other two away first wins. Last me standing in each formation moves on to do it again after this round." Naruto said to his field full of clones, getting a stiff nod from the chakra-comprised copies as they pressed their hands together in front of their own bodies and started to get the feel for the right kind of chakra in their bodies.

They would know when they got it when they felt their chakra convert into a breeze, and then they would harness it, blow the other two away, and take the win. Those were the rules of the game, and it was more productive than making a row of Narutos and making them practice the jutsu like they were martial artists going over katas in formation. That method worked too slow to learn a basic jutsu.

Nope, put the pressure on Naruto and he'd learn it faster. That was how it worked. Hence the clearing-wide three-way game of chicken.

"Fuuton: Reppuushou (Wind Release: Gale Palm)!"

From the sound of the wind blowing and the dispelled clones that Naruto could feel, one of the division matches had been completed. Now two. Damn it he needed to find the feeling that he needed faster.

Wait, he felt a tickle of air. Was that from him or from his clones? No, it was him because it moved over the backs of his hands first! Alright, just a little bit more and he'd win! It would be humiliating for the original to be knocked out of his own tournament with his clones.

"**Stop thinking about winning and just win already."** Kurama said inside of Naruto's head, **"If you can go for the kill you do it. You're lucky you're playing a game with yourself and not fighting a real battle. Shake that mindset sooner rather than later."**

Demonic chiding aside, Naruto was going for the win until his other clones that remained in the field heard rustling in the foliage at the edge of the area. An unsaid agreement was made to drop the competition for now so that some of the clones could investigate.

Without saying a word, four of Naruto's remaining clones pulled out a weapon just in case and started carefully walking to the edge of the field. Their mission to investigate didn't last long however as they were peppered with shuriken and destroyed.

Naruto was left with flashes of red eyes in his mind and held his head upon hearing Kurama's angry growl at the memory from the clones, 'Kurama were those the same eyes that the guy who-?'

"**Yes. Uchiha eyes. Remember what I just said about going for the kill?"**

'Yeah?'

"**Don't hesitate for a second."**

What the hell made Kurama think that it was going to end in a fight? It was kind of difficult to think that it was when the first sight Naruto saw of the actual Uchiha's body was a boy his age walking out from the brush holding a kunai up defensively.

He had black hair that was spiky in the back, black eyes, and wore a blue t-shirt with a high collar, white shorts, white and blue arm warmers, and blue sandals. He seemed to be looking around at the scene of the fourteen remaining Naruto clones strangely before staring at one thing in particular about them.

"Yeah?" One of Naruto's clones asked in a bit of an uppity manner. He wanted to get back to training so that he could win the tournament of clones and prove he was the best Naruto, "What do you want? We're kind of busy."

The Uchiha boy just looked at all of them and narrowed his eyes on them, "Tch, it's not the leftovers from that Hyuuga escort party." He said to seemingly no one in particular, "…It's an Uzumaki though." A weird-looking Uzumaki, but still an Uzumaki nonetheless.

Naruto's clones all got defensive at the identification of his clan only for several to be taken out from elsewhere, "Scatter!" One of the surviving clones said before he too was exterminated.

All of Naruto's clones and the original himself took off to make a run for it into the forest, followed by three blurs that came from the surrounding area to chase after them. The Uchiha boy prepared to give chase as well when he felt a hand hold onto his shoulder to keep him from doing so.

Turning around he paled a bit at the sight of an older Uchiha looking down at him, "Itachi?"

Like the younger boy he had black eyes and black hair but longer and in a loose ponytail down his back. His face contained very specific tear trough lines and a stoic, stony expression on his face. His attire consisted of grey light armor covering his torso and black pants with guards covering his forearms. Clearly a man used to constant combat from the looks of him.

"Sasuke, why would you waste effort pursuing that boy?" Itachi asked of his younger brother who took a step away from him when he was able, "He isn't the target we're meant to capture."

"Everyone else is going after him." Sasuke said in argument before trying to run off again only to have Itachi stop him once more, "What are you doing? I haven't fought a single battle since we got sent out here. I found him, I should go after him. He's an Uzumaki."

The fact that he was spoiling for some action after finding out that he was actually going to be sent out with his big brother for once made him more eager to get into a fight than normal. For once he had a chance to be impressive in front of Itachi whose entire career was just one big chain of big moments.

And getting to take down a member of a clan that was a well-known ally to the Senju Clan would only prove to be a big moment for his career as well. His Sharingan turned on out of the sheer excitement he had at the thought. This campaign in the west was his first distance dispatch as a full-fledged member of the Uchiha Clan.

"Did you ever stop to consider why you would find one Uzumaki Clan child all the way out here? If you ever see any of them on the mainland it's never this far away?" Itachi asked Sasuke as a means of making him wait and think. They were way too far west to simply come across an Uzumaki, "The Hyuuga Clan isn't allied with the Senju Clan, which means that an Uzumaki wouldn't be here to help them fight against us."

Aside from that, the current conflict between the Uchiha and nearby Hyuuga Clan hadn't even been going on long enough for the latter to even begin trying to seek assistance from any other Hi no Kuni clans. And the boy had been alone… technically. That clone jutsu he'd been using didn't count.

"Whatever." Sasuke said, realizing that Itachi was never going to let him go chase after the blond kid he'd come across. There went his chance to show his talent to his powerful big brother, "As long as you don't leave me behind when it's time to actually do missions." He didn't just want to be some place-filler.

"We'll see." Itachi said before narrowing his eyes in the direction that Naruto had run off in to evade the Uchiha who had gone after him. There was something about that boy's appearance that lined up with a rumor making the rounds around the country, 'The Uzumaki Clan's jinchuuriki?'

Apparently the new jinchuuriki didn't look like any other Uzumaki, and he was just a child. Those marks on his cheeks did seem extremely out of place.

There was work to do, but Itachi had to say that he was intrigued. Later perhaps when things weren't so busy. Right now they needed to locate the person of interest that the Uchiha Clan had been pursuing when Sasuke had come across the other child.

XxX

(With Naruto)

Scatter wasn't supposed to mean that they were all supposed to take off in the same damn direction, and yet that was what Naruto's clones had done when the excrement hit the fan and he wound up being chased.

"**I could have told you that was going to happen. What with him being an Uchiha and you being… a person that's not an Uchiha."** Kurama said in hindsight.

'Not now! Later!'

Luckily, the original Naruto was able to bail out from the pack by creating one last clone to make a timely substitution with. The rest of the Uchiha Clan members went on ahead to chase his clones. How he could tell this was because he felt his copies systematically getting picked off. His clones were smart though, because they were using the chakra available from splitting off from him to create more of themselves at opportune moments to continue retreating.

Hopefully they'd get sick of the never-ending numbers and quit pursuing the poor replications.

'I think they're gone.' Naruto thought to himself, hiding underneath a large bunch of gnarled roots beneath a tree sitting by a ledge. It was starting to rain, so if he played his cards right that would cover his tracks better, 'Okay, gotta get back to the cart. Everything'll be fine as long as I don't lead 'em back to the cart.'

Once he got back to the cart it would be like home base in a game of hide-and-seek as far as he was concerned. He couldn't take too long though or Kakashi, Tenten, Teuchi, and Ayame could be in some trouble if this was bigger than just a few Uchiha forward scouts.

What the hell were they doing there anyway? From everything he'd ever been told the Uchiha and the Senju stuck to the east and the center of Hi no Kuni to fight with each other. Kakashi had been paying close attention to the rumor mill as they'd travelled and dealt with customers at the cart, and nothing about any mounting battles between the two clans had been spoken of lately.

It wasn't his problem though. What was his problem was getting back to his people before things got worse.

And then things got worse.

…Kind of.

Because Naruto's little temporary hiding place was infiltrated. Not by an Uchiha, at least he didn't think she was one. A girl his age with a short, level-style dark blue-colored haircut, fair skin, and white eyes who seemed totally scared to death of the sight of Naruto and the kunai in his hand. She wore a cream colored jacket with a hood and fur around the cuffs, dark blue pants, and blue sandals.

The two just stared at each other for the longest time until the girl's eyes drifted down to his kunai and stayed there. Naruto's eyes did the same before panning back up to her face, "Shhh." Hopefully she knew the score of what was going on right now. From how she'd been breathing somewhat heavily she'd been running.

The girl just nodded and her eyes flickered away before looking back at Naruto, "A-Ano… you're not an Uchiha."

"No, I'm not." Naruto said, moving past her to get closer to the roots they were taking cover beneath, "Wait… how well did you lose them before you hid here?"

The girl held a hand to her chest before closing her eyes, reopening them with veins bulging around her temple and the features of her eyes becoming more distinct. This only lasted for a second or so before she deactivated it and let out a tiny 'eep' sound, "Not very well I'm afraid."

Naruto actually turned his head back around to give her a distinct look of annoyance mixed with fear, "What the hell do you mean, not very well?" Once again the two stared at each other as Naruto could hear movement through the leaves coming closer. He had several seconds to contemplate whether he should just run and ditch this girl who led the enemy straight to him, or do the right thing.

Ugh, as if it was ever even in question what he was going to do.

"Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu (Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu)!"

Without the girl's consent or even informing her of what he was about to do, Naruto scooped her up and dove out from underneath the tree just before it burst into flames. Why? Why did he have to take her with him? Whatever issue the Uchiha Clan had with her it wasn't his problem!

"I hate Hi no Kuni!" Naruto shouted to himself as he could feel the three people in pursuit right behind them; two guys, one girl. These were different guys from the first squad that had gone off on a wild goose chase after his clones, "I hate it so much! Fuck this country!"

The poor girl that was being chased for whatever reason couldn't really do anything but hold on tight and curl up as best she could in the arms of the strange boy she'd come across while fleeing from her clan's newest enemies, "What are we going to do?"

"I don't know!" Naruto replied in an alarmed manner, "I didn't have a plan when I grabbed you! I didn't have a plan _before_ I grabbed you! I'm making all of this up as I go along!"

"Ninja-san, drop!"

Naruto didn't know why he listened to the girl that shouldn't have been able to see a damn thing due to how her face was buried in his chest, but he did as he was told and by dropping down a branch managed to avoid several kunai from spiking his brain stem, letting them hit the trunk of one of the trees.

How'd she know that was about to happen?

It didn't matter, it was time to actually do something about this, because these guys were just as quick as the ones that had been after his clones and he was carrying a girl so he was slower now.

He couldn't stop and fight while holding onto this girl though, and even with the ability to litter the forest with clones, taking on the Uchiha Clan three-on-one wasn't his idea of a fun morning. But there was one thing he could do since it only took one hand-seal that he could do in his sleep, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)!"

Naruto created three clones that turned around to face off with the three adults pursuing him, but they didn't seem to be deterred by the numbers in the slightest, "They're all solid clones! Take them out!"

All three of the clones clashed in midair with the Uchiha adults… and were quickly defeated.

In theory they were defeated at least.

"Gah!" One of the Uchiha said as he struggled while holding his hands on his face after passing through the puffs of smoke from the destroyed clones, "I can't see! What did that brat do to me?" His two fellow clan members moved closer to him and set his hands aside to find an explosive tag stuck to his visage, burning down ominously.

Their faces morphed in horror and they tried to flee away from their doomed comrade after seeing what had attached itself and attached stubbornly to his face, but it was already too late for all three.

BOOM!

Farther away, Naruto flinched at the sound of his tag going off. He stuck a tag of his own to the back of one of his clones and activated it after creating it instead of having them use their own supply which would have vanished from existence the moment that they dispelled. The point of the trap was to make the enemy destroy the trapped clone so that the tag would be concealed in the smoke and would stick to them.

He was hoping that they'd underestimate the clones in the taijutsu department because he was a kid and wouldn't waste the projectiles on taking them out from afar, and he was right. Man, he wished someone from the village was around to see that.

Actually he didn't, because it was kind of raining hot body parts and blood spray. Not nice.

Landing on a branch far enough away that Naruto knew they weren't being pursued any longer, he set the girl back onto her feet and held onto her so that she wouldn't fall out of the tree as he admired his handiwork. That worked way too well, and he was really feeling himself at the moment, "That really blew 'em away didn't it?"

Yes. Heroic one-liner, check.

The girl couldn't really believe it either. A boy that looked to be almost exactly her age managed to overcome a team of Uchiha Clan shinobi that were at least several years his senior. Albeit it took a lot of running away, but if he had really been that overmatched his little trick would never have worked.

Averting his gaze over to the girl next to him he gave her a big grin to reassure her that things would be fine, "If anyone asks you and you tell this story to somebody later, it was eight guys instead of three and I carried you out of that tree _after_ it caught on fire." Speaking of fire, he then realized just what big beacons the fire from the explosive tag and the burned tree were going to be. It was like trying to learn that fire jutsu from Kakashi all over again, "Uh… we should really get outta here. Like now."

He went to pick her up again but quickly found out that it was not necessary when the girl started jumping from branch to branch all on her own. She could do that the whole time? Why the hell didn't she tell him that from the start?

"Oi!" Naruto shouted, heading off after her, "Who are you?"

XxX

(Some Time Later – Ichiraku Ramen Cart)

"You killed eight enemy ninja with one move?" Kakashi asked incredulously, sitting inside of the cart as it travelled down the rainy road was the best way to make sure that Naruto and the girl he'd brought along with him could stay hidden in case any Uchiha came along to try and check things out, "And you were surrounded?"

"Yep." Naruto said, sitting down between Tenten and the girl with the strange, pretty eyes, "Ask her. She was there." Eight sounded much cooler than three, thus he was sticking with it.

The girl seemed to be uncomfortable with being put on the spot so brazenly and looked down to the floor while poking her fingers together, "Yes. There were Uchiha Clan ninjas chasing after the two of us."

"You fought Uchiha?" Tenten asked, wanting to yell at their misfortune of coming across that particular clan, "Wait, you got away from them in one piece?"

Hinata nodded with a small, timid smile, "Naruto-san was very brave."

'I so totally wasn't.' Naruto thought to himself, still grinning smugly Tenten's way. His bun-haired partner wasn't believing any of his crap either and it showed all over her face, 'I was thirty seconds away from freaking out.'

It was a head-scratcher for Kakashi to figure out how Naruto was making the number of clones that he'd apparently made. He knew for a fact that while Kushina had taught him Kage Bunshin, she hadn't taught him the ultra-forbidden idiot version that would kill anyone else without a shadow of a doubt.

So that meant that he was making around thirty with the regular method for training because he was stretching the limits of what Kage Bunshin no Jutsu could do before needing to upgrade to Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu. Good foresight Kushina. Or maybe she didn't have the time and privacy to teach him just what he needed to do to go farther than that?

Gurk… that thought was kind of scary, that Kushina would have been entirely willing to give Naruto a kinjutsu if she'd been granted the time and the seclusion needed to do so. Mama bear indeed.

"Hmm." Kakashi stroked his chin in thought before smiling over at Naruto, "Perhaps you're more capable of handling yourself than I thought. Alright, I'll begin training you more intensively now that I've been assured that you can take it."

Why did that fill Naruto with a deep sense of dread?

Ayame was almost beside herself. Not one, not two, but now THREE cute little kids currently populating her father's cart? What deity did she need to pray to out of thanks for this? Just like Naruto and Tenten, this little girl was absolutely adorable! And she was so shy and polite!

She had to be taken out front with her father driving the cart so that she'd stop doting on the three of them, but every so often she would look back in with a forlorn look on her face. It didn't occur to her that at least two of these kids were deadly, deadly assassins. They were kids, they were cute, and she wanted one to sit on her lap so she could baby the ninja children.

Still though, while Kakashi could definitely feel some modicum of pity for the white-eyed little girl that his blond charge had brought back to camp, he wouldn't be doing his job if he wasn't suspicious, "So mind telling me what a Hyuuga is doing all on her own being pursued by the Uchiha Clan? At last check they didn't venture this far west. What's your name?"

"Hinata." The Hyuuga girl said nervously. Now that they knew what clan she was in, what would they do to her? There was a chance that in an effort to escape being captured or killed by the Uchiha she might have positioned herself for something worse, "W-What are you going to do now?"

"Well that depends." Kakashi said, watching their current tagalong shrink into herself just from his one-eyed gaze. He wasn't even trying to be intimidating, "What happened to you? You were being chased already when you ran into Naruto correct?"

Apparently a new clan conflict in the area was breaking out between the Hyuuga Clan who were noted for operating in the western portion of the country and the Uchiha Clan who were beginning to step on their toes.

The Hyuuga Clan had a strong economy due to the amount of clan members routinely hired out for guard service of the nobles of the countryside. They were the best one could ask for when it came to sentry duty due to their respective clan trait that let them see everything they could possibly need to in order to effectively protect their targets.

The Uchiha Clan were trying to extend their reach into the region and were being hired to infiltrate certain places that just so happened to be under Hyuuga guard. Needless to say after this happened more than a few times over the course of a few months tensions rose for both. But the Hyuuga Clan didn't anticipate actions that could be taken as open war to be done.

Hinata had been on her way back from a particular guard assignment that she'd taken as a good omen that things were beginning to look up. Not a single thing had happened on her mission. Her team hadn't had to fight or deal with any trouble from enemies hired by rivals the way that their client had anticipated, but it turned out to be a trap.

Their client favored the Uchiha Clan, and only hired her clan over the last several months to help the Uchiha by getting them a better idea of Hyuuga manpower and what they were capable of. And when it was learned that she was… well, a rather important member of the clan, they were informed and the Uchiha Clan dispatched a numerically superior force to capture or kill her.

Her team didn't survive, but they weren't the targets. They were in the way and were killed in a short battle as Hinata fled with them. She was the last one standing of the team, the youngest, and the most important to protect for so many reasons.

By the end of her story that she'd had a bit of trouble talking about due to the fact that she'd had to watch so many of her own clansmen fall in order to keep her safe, Hinata was close to tears. Tenten just looked on and nodded sadly, understanding that this sort of thing happened all of the time.

"So…" Ayame said, sitting off and listening raptly from the front of the cart where she could hear everything inside, "They started a war with your clan just to get your mercenary business?" That was her understanding at least, "How cutthroat."

She wasn't a ninja, so she didn't understand their motivations to do what they did. It was just difficult to come to grips with why a little girl like Hinata, who didn't seem like she could harm a fly, would be put in the kind of situation that would force her to watch people kill others while trying to murder her.

"I heard some stuff from the adults on Uzu no Kuni." Naruto said, getting attention put on him where he was sitting between the young kunoichi pair, "About the Uchiha Clan. They say things like they're stretching themselves thin with how long the war with the Senju Clan's been going."

"Yeah?" Tenten said, brown eyes looking at him curiously as to what his point was. She didn't know much about the ninja rumor mill since she was totally clanless and the only news she heard were some of the things that she'd been able to glean from travelers passing by her village, "It's been going on for so long nobody can remember a time when it wasn't."

That was exactly the thing though, as Naruto was getting to, "Yeah, and both of them are running out of money to fight with." He said, much to his partner's surprise.

You couldn't keep up a war for longer than a century for free. For the longest time they'd been the go-to clans for any kind of necessary mission services in Hi no Kuni because they'd been the strongest. They still were. So both clans were in a process of expansion to try and keep the flow of money coming into their coffers, and that required more than their traditional clientele. They needed to expand outward.

The Senju Clan allegedly started stretching its attempts for business north past the border in that direction while the Uchiha Clan did the same to the west. They kept fighting over business between each other in the east around the coast where business was most bountiful and the center of Hi no Kuni where both clans were situated.

Kakashi rubbed Naruto on top of his spiky head for knowing that much about such a sensitive subject. But his clan was close enough to one of the main players involved that adult conversation would trickle down to him if he listened hard enough, "When it comes to fighting regional wars, the Uchiha and Senju would much rather fight clans like the Hyuuga than fight each other. It doesn't cost nearly as much and usually winning one puts them in a better position to continue waging war with the other."

Most of the time, the clans that they pitted themselves again would back off rather than fight one or the other, but if things turned violent on a wider scale neither had any problem with battling them with the same intensity that the Senju Clan and Uchiha Clan would use against each other.

Internally Kakashi was kicking himself at not being able to read the current climate of the region better. If he knew things were getting tense in that way, he would have taken them out of the way instead of continuing on straight through. It was too late now though. They just had to keep moving and get themselves out of the hotspot as soon as possible.

Still though, "I need to go back home." Hinata told them, standing up from her seat to bow and ask their permission, "I know I've been enough of a burden already with needing to be protected by Naruto-san, b-but right now I don't think I would make it back on my own."

"I see." Kakashi said deciding that it was a better option than just walking west and hoping that they didn't run into any more unwelcome surprises. Hopefully Naruto had filled their quota for the day this morning, "…Your home wouldn't happen to be west would it? We were kind of going that way when Naruto brought you here and it would be really helpful if-."

"Kakashi!"

"I'm just saying."

XxX

(Uchiha Clan Fortress)

"They lost _both_ of them?" Walking through the halls of a well outfitted, bustling hilltop hideout with his older brother Itachi, Sasuke was definitely now kicking himself for being held back from continuing by Itachi, "How'd that kid kill three of us? They were older than him!"

"Older doesn't mean better." Itachi said, chiding Sasuke for that kind of mindset, "You should know that by now. In theory they were stronger than him, but that lends itself to its own list of things they could have fallen prey to."

Itachi saying something like stronger not necessarily meaning better was sort of lost on Sasuke, as Itachi was really the last person he really found that appropriate to hear such a thing from. Itachi was stronger _and_ better than anyone else really. Rumor had it that he possessed the Mangekyou Sharingan, but he didn't show it to others with the exception of their father due to him leading the clan.

Neither spoke about it. Itachi wasn't comfortable when it came to using or referring to it.

Sasuke figured that he might as well have stayed at home and kept taking missions there. His first time facing some real danger on the battlefield in a distance campaign, and he only got to fight a few Hyuuga Clan members more concerned with keeping their heiress safe than trying to win.

At least they were taking steps to begin actively engaging the Hyuuga Clan now. An ambush like before wasn't going to help him prove anything to himself or to his family, "So what's the strategy?" Sasuke asked.

The two of them walked outside of the fortress past some of the guards to overlook the lush valley that they'd put their fortress at the center of, atop an incredible multi-tiered hill that allowed them to oversee almost everything.

There was nothing around for miles, making their stronghold a proper hideout, but it wouldn't hide their place from the Hyuuga Clan if they could get a general read on their location. That was why this campaign needed to move quickly.

They'd already positioned strike forces just outside of three villages under the protection of the Hyuuga Clan, ready to make a move at Itachi's discretion as he was the head of this whole operation.

Most of the clan members seemed excited about the fact that they could possibly eliminate a rival in short order since many of them in the current generation were so used to fighting against an enemy in the Senju that they couldn't ever seem to wear down enough to break. Itachi however, didn't seem to share the same sentiment as many of them.

They couldn't tell if this was a 'business as usual' kind of thing for the battle-hardened Uchiha powerhouse, or if he was feeling disenfranchised for some reason or another. Actually, most of them couldn't see any difference in Itachi at all other than those close to him like Sasuke. But for those that could he definitely seemed off about something.

"We have a flanking formation on the Hyuuga Clan grounds." Itachi said, kneeling down to draw a diagram of what he was explaining in the dirt for Sasuke's benefit, "Do you see?" He said, pointing to three settlements around one large one.

"They're in a semi-circle around the Hyuuga grounds right?"

"Yes." Itachi said, "The plan is to cause a diversion in one, and attack from the angles provided by the other. Right now it doesn't matter which. If we use the middle one we can attack from the two exterior angles, but if we draw attention to one of the exterior villages we can use the other two to fold over and smash them from one side. Standard procedure in our clan's method of approach on a stronghold."

Itachi was so cool. The way he talked about taking the fight right to an enemy's fortified position as if they'd already won. Man, Sasuke wanted to be just like his older brother. No, he wanted to be stronger than his older brother.

He'd show his father that he could be just as good as Itachi was. And this was just the beginning.

XxX

(One Day Later – With the Ichiraku Ramen Cart – Hyuuga Clan Grounds)

"You all live there!?" Naruto asked loudly as they stood at the foot of a grand hill with a huge castle at the top of it. By huge it was seven stories off of the ground… starting at the top of the hill, and the sheer amount of ground it covered around and across seemed like the size of a small village, "Like… nobody lives in a house surrounding it or anything? Everybody gets to live in the castle? That's nuts!"

He was so jealous. He'd never even seen the inside of the Uzumaki Clan mansion before and Hinata _lived_ inside that big, huge castle.

"Don't be so loud Naruto." Kakashi said, "We're not exactly friends of these people-." Before he could even finish his sentence, they were surrounded by ten other obviously Hyuuga Clan members with their strange doujutsu active, glaring suspiciously at them, "-Yet. Hello there." The white-haired adult said as Naruto and Tenten huddled around him in a makeshift manji formation.

"Where are the rest?" One of the Hyuuga Clan members said, coldly staring down the new arrivals with their nigh featureless eyes, "Hinata-sama left four days ago for her mission with six other members of our clan. So where are they?"

"…We don't know?" Naruto said, finding that to be the wrong answer when he felt himself layered in the pressure of their collective killing intent, "Seriously! We don't know! I found her running away from some Uchiha guys in the forest!"

"Not helping, not helping, not helping." Tenten chanted under her breath before she saw that all of these Hyuugas had some strange green mark on their foreheads; two canes on opposite sides of a manji-looking design. What the hell was that?

Hinata moved from behind them to try and talk down her clansmen from trying to find a reason to kill the group that involved her technical savior. Upon seeing her endeavor to defend them her presence starting disarming things before she'd even spoken.

"The team I left with was a-attacked by the Uchiha Clan on the way home." Hinata said sadly, taking a moment to let it sink in as to why she was the only one who had made it back, "These people went out of their way to escort me home. They're… f-friends."

The eyes of the Hyuuga Clan snapped back onto the ninja trio, "Yes! Friends! Totally friends!" Naruto said a bit louder than necessary, netting him a pinch on the arm from Tenten. Hey, this was the first time he'd been surrounded like this. Being all cool like Kakashi wasn't really his forte when he _wasn't_ sure he was a few seconds away from a hopeless fight, let alone when he was actually facing one down.

Sparing the small boy one glance with their strange doujutsu kekkei genkai, they all dropped their jaws at the sheer amount of chakra they could see coursing through his body. And then they looked up at Kakashi and noted the very particular trait he was hiding behind the sloped left side of his headband over his eye.

Copy Ninja Kakashi, and some Uzumaki kid with _way_ too much chakra and a seal on his belly holding back even more that they couldn't really sense.

"Hatake-san." One of the Hyuugas said with a half-bent bow, "Thank you for returning Hinata-sama and braving the Uchiha Clan to do so. We're all aware of your reputation with them."

"Uh, it was nothing?" Kakashi said, a bit confused at the sudden change in attitude, but not really hating the shift whatsoever, "All in a day's work I guess." Sometimes he forgot that he was supposed to be famous. Lately it was kind of hard to remember when he was basically babysitting a pair of preteen killers, one of whom was glaring at him for stealing his hero thunder.

"Our clan patriarch would love to speak with you. Please, your children and the merchant folk with you will be allowed onto the premises as guests until you depart. It's not safe in this area."

Yeah. They already knew that.

XxX

(Outskirts of Nearby Village)

The contingent of Uchiha Clan ninja stood over two hundred strong, prepared to head forth and take on the stronghold of the Hyuuga Clan. As it now stood they were out of range of being seen by the damn Byakugan that every single one of them possessed, but once they began their approach they would never get close enough to even begin launching distance attacks unless Itachi's stratagem worked.

The Hyuuga Clan castle grounds sat at the edge of a cliff overlooking a main lowland road beneath that they could easily monitor, but a short ways away in that direction there was a ridge that could actually overlook the castle.

Once they made a ruckus in one of the towns to attract the attention of the Hyuuga Clan the ranged artillery would move forward up onto the ridge and begin bombarding them from afar. This clan was notable for being poor in regards to distance fighting, both in the ninja arts and in overall warfare. It was just that their Byakugan usually made up for that discrepancy.

This rain would wind up playing into their hands as well. It wouldn't hamper their fire techniques one bit.

Sasuke was antsy as he waited with many of his clansmen for things to start. They were all advancing as close as they could to the castle before the first bit of action began, which would attract attention to one of the other villages and begin pulling the Hyuuga Clan in that direction before they got themselves flanked.

The castle itself would be wide open as well, not that they would be able to really defend from the Uchiha distance attack.

"Sasuke." The young Uchiha found his attention garnered by his brother's call, "I have a mission for you." He did? Yes, finally, "Rumor has it that a small path leads to a bridge away from the castle meant as a way out in case the grounds are ever overrun. I want you to investigate and see if this is true."

Oh. Some mission. This was just a way to keep him out of the real battle. Damn it, why did things always have to be this way?

It wasn't Sasuke's ideal position to be in whatsoever, "Itachi, why do you always try to do this? Why can't I fight on the front lines like everyone else?" He said, his onyx eyes shifting to the red of his kekkei genkai, revealing two tomoe surrounding the pupil in each orb, "I can do it."

"I know." Itachi said, "Which is why I'm telling you to do what I say. We can't spare a party to head around the back end lest they be seen. If this rumor of an escape route is true, we have you to set a trap and cut off their escape. They'll have no way out."

And the Hyuuga Clan would have to surrender or be destroyed.

Sasuke was listening raptly now as Itachi set his hands on his shoulders to make him listen, "Once you find this place set your traps and send a signal. Depending on the tide of the battle at the time I'll either meet you there myself or a squad of twelve will." A job like this was actually dangerous. He would be moving _ahead_ of the others, "Scouts are usually the ones that find themselves in the worst peril during combat."

Yes. Give him that. He was perfectly fine with that. This was what he'd been waiting for.

Sasuke just smirked and nodded his understanding to his role before Itachi gave him a push to send him off, which he did without hesitating.

Maybe in another time it would have been considered insanity to send a ten-year old off to do such a thing. All Itachi could really feel was sorrow at the fact that a ninja that hadn't even reached his teen years yet could be completely accepted going off to do something like this.

Sasuke might have been older than Itachi was when he'd first been sent out to do this sort of thing, but there was still a hope in his older brother's mind that Sasuke wouldn't turn out to be anything like him no matter how much Sasuke wanted to be.

XxX

(Hyuuga Clan Castle – Clan Head's Office)

Kakashi personally despised sitting in seiza. He was a hard-working ninja that was currently burning the candle at both ends, training a pair of kids and protecting a roving ramen cart. When he chose to relax, he would rather not do so by sitting on his goddamn heels behind him in a straight-backed position!

But he was the guest here. And he needed some information on this part of the country that civilians apparently didn't have if he didn't know that the Uchiha Clan were out there.

Sitting in front of him, seemingly far more used to the uncomfortable position, was the host of the day; Hyuuga Hiashi. A stern-looking man, at least a decade older than Kakashi with a high forehead, long black hair, white-colored eyes, and loose-fitting white robes with a brown haori over them.

The clan of noble shinobi, and when taking note of this man and many of the others he'd seen since arriving there they really looked the part.

"What brings the infamous Hatake Kakashi to this part of Hi no Kuni?" Hiashi asked, watching Kakashi closely as he stared right at the masked man who was holding a small cup of tea, "Rumors say that the normal areas where you've been spotted for the past twelve years have been around the east coast."

Kakashi knew he was to be expected to drink, but he'd be damned if he took his mask off for any reason whatsoever. He didn't take his mask off to sleep, when he was half-dead in a hospital, or to get laid, so he definitely wasn't going to do it today, "Well would you believe me if I said I just felt like a change of scenery?"

"Not in the slightest."

"I didn't think so."

"And the children with you." Hiashi continued, calmly sipping at his tea, "A clan-less little girl and an Uzumaki with monstrous chakra, even by their standards." Oh, Kakashi didn't like the way that this seemed like it was about to go, "Which one Hatake-san?"

Kakashi just stared at him before sighing, "Byakugan?"

"Byakugan." Hiashi confirmed, allowing the veins around his temple to bulge at the sides of his eyes to turn on his kekkei genkai, "We can see almost anything. It's just that not too many of us know exactly what we're looking at when we see inside the child. Jinchuuriki are a mysterious sort, and fuuinjutsu isn't exactly our strong point."

'Hence the cursed seals on the heads of your Branch Family that effectively set up a caste.' Kakashi thought to himself, wisely choosing not to say this aloud, '…If I gave Naruto three years to study what it's _supposed _to be for, in his downtime he could probably come up with something better than that.'

Naruto might have been a chibi-Uzumaki, but he was still an Uzumaki. It was like those people could read the language of the seals and it looked like Naruto wasn't that different if a little less learned due to his age.

The stoic Hyuuga leader remained with his impassive stare on Kakashi, "The jinchuuriki rumor is true after all. An unconventional-looking Uzumaki boy, and I can see the seal on his stomach constantly trying to mix chakra with his own." He saw Kakashi stiffen and held up a hand to assuage his fear, "No, I can see clearly that the seal is more than stable. His chakra flow is steady and safe. Were he unstable his chakra would fluctuate wildly."

"But still, that rumor has made it this far already?" Kakashi asked in a bit of wonder. He'd only gotten Naruto two weeks ago. It reached the other side of Hi no Kuni faster than they had, enough to get to people that had absolutely nothing to do with it, "Do you know who could have started it?"

Hiashi shook his head in the negative, "It's just something that has spread. We were told by the client of the last few missions we've taken." A man that he'd be having a word with for his treachery. And by 'a word' he meant 'a palm to the chest' for certain, "There are more important things to be concerned with. Such as the pending threat of war with the Uchiha Clan."

About that… "Is there any way we can get out of here before that actually starts?" Kakashi wondered with an amicable eye-smile, "The Uchiha Clan aren't exactly the biggest fans of mine as you could probably imagine." For emphasis he tapped his covered left eye, "And I have civilians with me."

"Actually, I would like to, for lack of a better term, pick your brain for possible ways to fight against them." Hiashi requested with a bit of a bow Kakashi's way, putting the man on the spot, "The fact that we both possess doujutsu is something that has inherently set us against one another, but our respective areas in the country kept us from ever engaging in any real conflict. Their current economy is putting a squeeze on them."

Trying to find different avenues to profit elsewhere was the key to their continued survival and ability to thrive at the top of the food chain. And it just so happened that their next avenue happened to be right through the Hyuuga Clan.

XxX

(Meanwhile – Bluff Overlooking the Castle)

Itachi slogged up the rest of the hill through the rain past a sparse number of Uchiha Clan members all manning one massive piece of weaponry that they were rolling into a good place to take aim, covered by enough foliage that they would only move it from behind when it came time to fire.

"Things are almost ready Itachi." One of the clansmen leading artillery portion of the attack force said, "Just give us the signal when you want us to fire and we'll be ready. It'll be a hell of a shot to make, but I think we can pull it."

"We have no choice." Itachi replied as he tried to observe the Hyuuga Clan castle through their cover, "The only way we keep the element of surprise is at a distance. A vast distance. Without the advantage of a surprise attack we would be facing perhaps the best defensive clan in Hi no Kuni."

The point was understood, if not necessarily liked. The Uchiha Clan liked to believe that they could defeat any opponent, but Itachi was the pragmatist of the clan. He was the one that no matter what was always realistically able to gauge their chances in combat with any enemy and was able to logically ascertain a method for them to take. More often than not it usually resulted in victory.

In the last major battle against the Senju Clan four years ago, Itachi made his name in this manner at the age of thirteen, actually turning the tide of the battle in the middle of a massive Senju rout and managing to bring it to a stalemate.

So he had their trust as a more than capable shinobi and leader.

His eyes bore witness to the clan members loading up a giant bolt in a massive crossbow that was to be their distance weapon with which to terrorize the hallowed grounds of the region's most powerful clan.

"Prepare to set fire to the arrow at a moment's notice to shoot."

It was almost time for the battle to begin.

* * *

Major Clan Information

Hyuuga Clan  
Leader: Hyuuga Hiashi

**Population: 3.5/5  
Military Strength: 2.5/5  
Economy: 5/5  
Notable Traits: Dark hair. White eyes. Aristocratic in mannerisms, appearance, and behavior. Devastating close-range fighting ability. Separated into two separate classes of member based on lineage. Dojutsu kekkei genkai 'Byakugan', allowing them near 360 degrees of vision, the ability to see through solid objects, telescopic sight, and the ability to see with great details the many facets of chakra.  
Area of Operation: Western Hi no Kuni.**

Uchiha Clan  
Leader: Uchiha Fugaku

**Population: 4.5/5  
Military Strength: 5/5  
Economy: 3/5  
Notable Traits: Dark hair. Dark eyes. Exceptionally skilled in all methods of combat and warfare. Extremely susceptible to their emotions. Powerful chakra. Natural aptitude for fire-based ninjutsu. Highly aggressive combatants. Direct descent from the Rikudou Sennin. Doujutsu kekkei genkai 'Sharingan', allowing them incredible clarity of perception, the ability to analyze and copy skills, and the ability to cast a hypnotic genjutsu on targets.  
Area of Operation: All of Hi no Kuni, extending influence into outer lying areas and other countries.**

* * *

**Alright, so this was originally supposed to be one chapter, but it was way too big so I had to break it into two. Double post hoooooooo!**

**Yeah, that's enough of that. Keep going if you'd like. Later.**

**Kenchi out.**


	5. Pride of the Shinobi

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. With a computer you can do just about anything these days, so let's see if I can change that sometime soon.

*Part of a double-post, ch.4 & 5. Take care.*

**Chapter 5: Pride of the Shinobi**

* * *

"Oof!" Naruto hit the ground in a grassy outdoors ring belly-down before jumping back up, ready to fight again, "One more time! Rematch! Let's go!"

Standing across from him in a little ring intended for one-on-one sparring, a boy around his age with long brown hair tied low down his back and white-eyed stood at the ready in a strange open-palmed taijutsu stance. He wore brown shirts and khaki shirt with bandages wrapped around his right arm and right leg, and on his forehead sat the green seal that many of the other clan members had.

Apparently Hinata had a cousin that was meant to be something of her keeper. They had found him outside in the midst of training while the rain had stopped temporarily and went to meet him. After introductions and hearing of what had happened during the mission that she had been dispatched on, he was curious of just what the person that could fend off multiple members of the Uchiha Clan while protecting Hinata could do.

"Spar with me all you like." The boy said, breathing slightly heavily as he waited for Naruto to walk off his cobwebs, "You can't defeat me." Apparently he could wear him down though.

On the sidelines sitting with a worried-looking Hinata now clad in a dark-colored kimono, Tenten rolled her eyes, "Naruto, if you used more than just taijutsu to fight him you might actually hit him." She pointed out with her cheek in her palm. Naruto hadn't even tried to bust out the clones, weapons, or anything, "…I'm just saying. He's way better at it than you."

"Yeah, he is." Naruto said, wiping a scuff off of his cheek, "Come on Neji, do you want to go again?"

"Why doesn't he quit?" Hinata asked softly, having borne witness to several attempts of Naruto falling to Neji's young mastery of the clan taijutsu style, "Neji-niisan is the most talented of our generation and… well…"

Figuring what she was trying to find a nice way to say, the weapon specialist did it for her, "Naruto's taijutsu isn't the cleanest compared to his is it?"

As this occurred, a challenging look came from the young male Hyuuga whose stance lowered even more than before to deal with Naruto again, "By all means, use more than taijutsu against me. I want to see how good a person that can defeat ten Uchiha Clan members all on his own really is." His eyes bulged to reveal the Byakugan again, "All of that chakra has to be good for something incredible. I'm interested in seeing your ninjutsu."

"Funny how that number seems to go up every time someone talks about it." Tenten deadpanned to herself under her breath. It freaked her out a bit that every single Hyuuga was capable of seeing through them, but it was kind of cool too. That was a neat ability to have, to see their chakra.

After getting to the castle, Kakashi was taken to speak with the leader of the Hyuuga Clan while Hinata was tended to by some of the other members, eventually being left with a Branch House member around her age in Hyuuga Neji. He wasn't very nice, but upon hearing how Naruto had dealt with their attackers he found himself interested and actually challenged Naruto to a spar.

Which was gleefully accepted, and led to now.

"So you can see what exactly with the Byakugan?" Tenten asked the quiet Hyuuga girl next to her, "Is it just chakra, or can you see through people's clothes and stuff?"

And why did that have to be the first thing that she asked if Hinata could see through? If she didn't feel uncomfortable before… "W-Well it's almost anything you can think of really."

While Naruto prepared himself to take on Neji again, Tenten kept her attention on Hinata who had been watching right along with her, "I've got another question then. I've seen that seal on some of the people in this clan, but not all of you. What is it?"

She hadn't asked that question very quietly, and Neji seemed to detach himself from the fight, staring over at Tenten and Hinata… or was it just Hinata? She noticeably shrank back into herself and he turned to leave.

Tilting his head in confusion, Naruto relaxed his body from preparing to fight, "Hey Neji, where are you going?"

"I'll have to continue testing what you're capable of another time perhaps Uzumaki-san." Neji said without stopping, "I've gotten ahead of myself and forgotten that I have other responsibilities to adhere to today. Hinata-sama." He then departed the outdoors sparring area.

Tenten looked confused as Naruto walked back over to her and Hinata, "What just happened?" It almost seemed like that frosty guy had been having fun, right until she'd brought up the seal.

Naruto just scratched his head as he considered the design, "I don't know. I was trying to figure out what it was the whole time we were sparring."

He'd really been trying to break it down since the moment they'd first seen the seals. It wasn't for chakra or anything like that. Naruto didn't think it even did anything for them. Nothing positive at least.

"It's meant to seal off the Byakugan." Hinata said with her eyes down to the ground, "If someone with the seal dies, it prevents an enemy from taking the Byakugan away and using its power for themselves."

Oh, that made sense to Tenten. That was pretty useful. Why'd it have to be so ugly and right on their foreheads though? She couldn't imagine walking around outside of her home like that without something covering it so hopefully they did that.

Naruto was about to accept it at face value until he started thinking deeper about what he knew of seal composition, "...That kind of makes sense because of the manji mark dead-center in it, but the way it's bonded. Why's it got those hook arrays?"

From hard-nosed fuuinjutsu education underneath a mother that wouldn't tolerate him not knowing how to break down a seal from afar, Naruto could tell what he was looking at more often than not. Those cane marks outlining the manji were traditionally meant to represent 'prisoner' or 'confined' in seal-speak. And while the manji was supposed to represent a higher being, the reversed version would have to mean the reverse in this case as well, a lesser being.

…

…Oh it had better not be.

But from the look on Hinata's face she was already regretful about what she knew Naruto's face showed he was aware of, "Oh you're kidding me. That's a juinjutsu isn't it? A cursed seal?"

Tenten raised a curious eyebrow at what they were talking about and why Naruto seemed to have such a problem with it. It obviously didn't sound good if the word 'cursed' was in it, "For those of us that didn't grow up teething on a sealing scroll, what's a cursed seal?"

"Juinjutsu." Naruto said, sparing Hinata a glance that let her know that he wanted to know more about this later, but for the sake of finally being able to tell Tenten something she didn't know for once instead of just asking others about things he didn't know in regards to the mainland he explained himself, "Cursed seal techniques. Other seal techniques usually seal chakra and other stuff away into other stuff, but juinjutsu are markings with chakra in them that people can use to control others."

"Like how?"

"Like there's probably some kind of command or something that'll do stuff to Neji and these Branch guys could hurt 'em." Naruto explained, drawing Neji's seal in the dirt with a kunai he pulled from his supply, "You can tell what most seals are if you know enough about what certain designs are supposed to mean. It's not all gibberish even if you don't understand it at first. Some pattern'll show up in other techniques and that can help you figure out what means what if you can compare things."

Rarely did entirely new arrays that _no one_ had ever seen before come up, which was why it was so impressive that Kushina had managed to pull out one. If you'd seen enough of them to understand what made them tick you could break down tons of different techniques.

Tenten was kind of impressed about what Naruto knew. He might not have been worldly-wise exactly, or a very easy-to-teach person, but he sounded like he knew what he was talking about here. You couldn't fake that kind of confidence in your voice when you were speaking on a subject.

But now with all eyes on her, Hinata was compelled to speak on the subject in some way. Having friends she'd just made after saving her life think her detestable for her clan practices was the absolute last thing that she wanted to have happen.

She found it nice to have friends her age, since most of the Hyuuga Clan children didn't like her much due to her status as a Main House Hyuuga.

"It was created a long, long time ago." Hinata said, sounding none too proud about what she knew of the backstory, "I… I don't know much of the reasoning, but it was more than just a safeguard for the Byakugan. Our clan was almost subjected to c-civil war."

The prospect of a war occurring solely between members of a single family seemed scarier than the thought of any regular kind of war. Thus was the nature of a civil war.

Her discomfort at revealing history like that could be understood as Hinata continued regardless, "The head at the time and his brother who was angry over not being the leader led factions of our clan, and it's said that this was done to prevent war from occurring again after it ended. Members that wound up folding back into the clan after it ended allowed the seal to be placed on them for leniency, and it… well, you know."

That was a really archaic way to deal with things. It made sense to clan-raised Naruto though. There _had_ to be a better way to make a seal that would ensure others couldn't use the Byakugan after a user's death nowadays. That and it sounded like some old-school hard justice punishment that would fall in line with what would be expected of the times.

Hell, he himself was about to get something fairly similar to a 'dead-on-arrival' sentence if his own clan caught him. So he understood, contrary to what anyone else ever wanted to think about him, but that didn't mean he liked it. He accepted that things at times wound up being that cutthroat, even with family, but things shouldn't have been that way. From what he'd understood, Neji was her first cousin, so this wasn't some far-from-the-line-of-direct-lineage Hyuuga, he was almost right next to the main branch of descent.

"Guh…" Naruto kicked his foot in the dirt to stir up his own drawing before getting up to find Neji really quick.

True, he was just a kid, and he didn't have their background. Oh there'd be some reasoning behind it, or someone would say something about him not being old or experienced enough to know what the reasons behind something were. That was the way things had always gone back in the village at least.

Except for Kushina. She always told him that knowing about something wasn't the same as understanding it, and if he wanted to form his own opinion on something he needed to learn of the entire story, from all sides.

Getting up, Naruto decided to take off and try to find Neji. It hadn't been that long ago that he'd been there, and true to form Naruto quickly found him in a grassier area striking at a post. So this was the 'responsibility' he had to get up and leave to adhere to?

"What do you want Uzumaki-san?" Neji said in the midst of his training/anger management, freaking Naruto out as he thought he'd been quiet enough to watch unseen. Oh, there was that Byakugan thing. Not fair, "You're _honored_ guests of Hinata-sama. I don't see what you'd want with a Branch member such as myself."

Naruto walked over and stood nearby as Neji stopped striking and leaned against the post he'd been using to wait on his answer only to see Naruto start off by pointing at his own forehead. Neji's eyes narrowed at Naruto until he explained, "I heard about what that was supposed to be for."

"Why do you say it like that?"

"Well I want to hear what you think."

Neji laughed humorlessly, "What I think about it huh?" Gesturing to Naruto to have a seat, Neji's smile seemed bitter and sardonic more than anything else, "It's a symbol that no matter how skilled I grow to be I'll always be beneath the members of the Main Branch. It means that my entire life is meant to protect and serve the Main Branch at all costs. That's what happened already with the team that left with Hinata on her mission. All were ninjas with more experience and ability than her, but because they were ambushed it was their fate to die allowing her to escape."

That was a cold way of looking at it. Naruto's first instinct was to snap about how he could be the one to decide whether someone's death was appropriate or not, but he bit his tongue instead, allowing Neji to continue with a gesture of his hands.

"And this is the way things will always be." Neji did not disappoint as he continued, "During this war I'll see it in spades. The Branch Family being forced to lay themselves down for the sake of the Main Family members when things get dire. Are we not the same blood? And yet I'll be expected to sacrifice myself at a moment's notice for someone that sees me as beneath them, unable to expect the same in return if the need arises."

What a grave outlook. Naruto craned his neck around to find Hinata hiding around a wall, watching and looking quite saddened by what she was hearing, "Well look. I know you don't like a big chunk of your clan, but could you do me a favor?" Neji raised an eyebrow, but he was willing to at least listen. Maybe what he had to say wouldn't be asinine, "I've only been around her for a day, so maybe I don't know her, but Hinata doesn't seem like that kind of person. And she's next in line right?"

"She's next to inherit control of the clan if that's what you're asking."

"Okay, get to know who she really is. The way I saw it, she's ashamed that the cursed seal is on you."

"Well there's nothing anyone can do about that is it? And I know what kind of a person she is; weak." Neji said, "I've seen her in needed the sacrifice of our clansmen and your timely intervention to survive what befell her. Did she even fight? You probably like her because of some complex of yours to be a hero."

"No." Naruto replied unconvincingly, actually averting his eyes and confirming Neji's point to an extent, but he could feel the mood of Hinata just fall from where she was trying to observe their conversation, "Just… just do me that favor. Try. Can you try?"

"It will do no good." Neji shut his eyes and shook his head, "From the moment I was branded my fate was sealed. The only path to my freedom is death."

Any continuation to the conversation would have to wait, because a gigantic flaming projectile flew through the sky overhead and crashed straight into the towering castle that was in plain sight of all of them. Instinctually, Naruto and Neji covered up in case they were the ones about to take damage.

After it was clear that no debris was going to hit them, both looked up at the burning top portion of the castle with a huge flaming arrow skewering it. What the hell?

"Neji?" Naruto asked, not needing to say anything as his eyes were already showing the telltale signs of Byakugan use, "Who shot that off?"

"It's too far for me to see." He begrudgingly admitted despite focusing in the direction that he knew the arrow had been fired from. His first instinct was to suspect foul play of Naruto's party, but upon seeing the real life alarm on his face and seeing how his heartbeat picked up the pace in a panic he cast aside that notion, "But… the castle above that level is structurally compromised. The upper floors are for the Main Branch, and the top is where Hiashi-sama's office is situated."

That wasn't good. Kakashi was supposed to be up there as well in the middle of a meeting with Hiashi.

The rest of the clan weren't idle either, as many were starting to get to work on trying to get up to that level to put out the fire, others were buzzing about the premises to discover the source of the initial shot and respond accordingly.

"INCOMING!"

A second large arrow hit higher up on the castle, puncturing all the way through and causing the roof to collapse down onto the weakened upper levels of the building.

Where the hell were those coming from? Over with Hinata, Tenten was trying to fight down her own fear and calm her mind by sensibly judging the speed and trajectory of the two previous shots to determine what she could from their position.

On the road to the castle they had to move underneath a cliff around what she now knew to be the side end of the grounds, but further in that same direction there was a bluff that created something of a valley that they'd been travelling in. Whether or not it overlooked the top of the hill they were on she couldn't tell, but it didn't need to. If they had a bow device powerful enough to shoot that far of a distance it wouldn't be that difficult for an experienced artillery commandant to take aim and hit the castle itself.

"It's coming from the cliff to the south! That's the only place anyone could ever get a decent shot on this location from!" Tenten shouted over the sounds of panic and the rainfall that picked back up as things began to grow panicked. The Hyuuga Clan members that heard her took things into account and realized that the girl was right before going off to inform the people they needed to of what was going on.

One of these Hyuugas went to Neji and Naruto, grabbing the former by his shoulders in a rush, "Neji, you protect Hinata-sama. The Uchiha have already tried to pursue her as a priority target. There are Uchiha Clan members coming this way and we're getting our forces together to meet them in battle."

"How close?" Neji wondered, as they should have seen an approach of that nature coming.

"They stayed out of default range of guards' Byakugan security scans until the arrows were launched and they moved up." The adult clan member said, eyes panning in the direction that they were aware the attack would be coming from, "I'm not certain how bad this will get and Hiashi-sama isn't available to be found so take Hinata-sama to the escape." His eyes panned to Naruto and Tenten, "Are you with us?"

"I guess." Naruto said honestly. It wasn't like they had a choice at this point. If the castle fell the Uchiha Clan probably weren't going to differentiate targets in the heat of battle. That much was clear from Naruto's first run-in with them, "Why?"

"You protected her once. Would you be willing to assist Neji in getting Hinata-sama to safety?"

All Naruto could do was nod. It was either do something useful, jump onto the frontlines of a real ninja battle, or sit in the middle of a burning castle premises waiting around like a little kid. His choice was more or less made when a third flaming giant arrow devastated the Hyuuga grounds.

"Go!" The Hyuuga member ordered before taking off for the battlefield.

With a sigh as he saw his Branch House family member off, Neji's face took on a stern taciturn and he took off with Naruto into Tenten and Hinata's direction. He was given an order and as loathe as he was to see it through he wouldn't cop out on his duty. He had more honor than that.

Upon reaching the girls, Neji fully took the lead and led the three younger ninjas through the premises to the back end of the castle grounds, "Follow me."

XxX

(Outside of the Hyuuga Castle Grounds)

"Hold them back!" One of the formally-dressed Hyuuga Clan members shouted as a barrage of kunai fell from the sky and cut down those that were unable to garner cover behind the trees that littered the forested hill, "We have the high ground!"

He then found himself felled by a well-placed throw of shuriken that found themselves lodged in his neck, bringing him to a rather unpleasantly bloody end. So much for the advantage of the high ground.

Itachi had absolutely no problems leading the way for the rest of his forces to follow with on the primary charge. Not only could he see anything coming his way with his vaunted Sharingan, he had the speed and body control to handle anything that came his way.

It was almost enchanting to watch him dance through the explosions and flurry of metal objects flying his way, especially when you paid attention to the other clan members nearby trying to mimic his movements only to fail and fall by the wayside to their wounds and their own mortality as a result.

The movements couldn't be human. They were too perfect. Not so much textbook as they transcended technique altogether. You couldn't study how to move like that. Every dodge, weave, hop, step, spin, cut to the inside or outside was more like studious instinct; moves practiced to a compulsive degree.

Slowing down, Itachi raised a hand and lowered it forward as multiple Uchiha Clan members took to the sky, weaving through hand-seals before letting loose with the signature clan jutsu, "Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu (Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu)!"

If the bellowing flames from above didn't directly threaten the shinobi standing against them they set the trees above them and around the main path ablaze, and while the Byakugan of every Hyuuga was on and while they could see basically everything they couldn't keep their attention on all of it. This was Itachi's overall strategy, to overwhelm their most relied upon sense of sight. As a fellow doujutsu-using clan it was a concept that the Uchiha understood well.

As the fire burned, Itachi abused his Shunshin no Jutsu abilities liberally, appearing in the midst of the Hyuuga lines and cutting down those unprepared for him or more concerned with his clansmen than the threat that he himself posed. Those smart enough to realize what was happening and defend themselves found their abilities to land a blow with their hands and fingertips on Itachi a daunting task in of itself.

With Itachi being the one wearing modern body armor when the rest were wearing their regular clothes with mesh armor underneath, he made quite the target as a potential serious threat even before people realized just who he was.

"I know your taijutsu." Itachi said, dodging his way past the strikes of three Hyuuga Clan men and women from different squads that deigned to band together and take out the most devastating participant in the battle by far, "Your clan is by far the best at hand-to-hand combat that I've ever seen, but that doesn't matter if you can't keep up with your target."

They had him surrounded in a triangle formation and still it was like he was making sport of them from the way he expertly slipped their strikes, one time even grabbing the arm of one Hyuuga's missed palm strike and moving it into the path of another Hyuuga's blow, causing him to take it on the inside of his elbow, rendering his arm useless without Itachi ever even making a move.

Jumping out of the fray, Itachi simply continued on his way up the hill, 'Perhaps the time has come for the flanking team to make their move?' He couldn't see how guarded the castle still was, but from the way the battle was transpiring it seemed as if in their panic the Hyuuga Clan set out to meet them head-on instead of trying their own flanking movements.

The call for falling back to the first walls of the castle went out for the Hyuuga Clan and Itachi was then thoroughly convinced that it was indeed time for the third phase of the attack. With his forces steadily moving forward despite losses during the push up the hill, they were bullying the Hyuugas back.

A sharp whistle from Itachi resulted in multiple ones going up from leaders of smaller Uchiha squads, warning them to slow their advance lest they be caught in a trap. They had things well in hand at this point, but an enemy counterattack could still occur. Itachi was unsure of just what that could entail, but he wasn't eager to learn what it would be.

"Suiton: Daibakufu no Jutsu (Water Release: Great Waterfall Jutsu)!"

From the crest of the hill a rumbling that shook the ground occurred before a horrifying amount of water spilled down the knoll in a massive wave that covered most of the width of the battlefield.

There was no chance of leaping into the branches to take cover above ground due to the fact that most of the trees were on fire, thus leaving taking cover behind any given rock, any sturdy enough tree, or previously erected ramparts created by the Hyuuga Clan as the only alternative.

It worked in some cases, but in a more than ample amount of circumstances it simply wasn't ample support and Uchiha upon Uchiha found themselves swept away downhill with crushing force, crashing against trees and rocks that broke their bodies in half if they hadn't already been.

Itachi managed to avoid damage by taking cover underneath a crest that the water flowed over, leaving him a bit wetter than the rain had made him but unharmed nonetheless, "Hm. Now who do they have with elemental ninjutsu skill like that? And what a good defensive strategy given the conditions."

He would have to think on that later. The Uchiha Clan attack had stalled, and the secondary wave to occur from a flanking side had to have been broken from that one timely ninjutsu. The tide had to be kept from turning more than it already had.

XxX

At the top of the hill, a slightly singed Kakashi stood by Hiashi who also seemed to have suffered his share of burns from the attack on the castle, "That should significantly slow the attack." The masked Hatake said to the clan head next to him as he stood on the wall that the retreating Hyuuga Clan had gotten behind before he'd let his jutsu go.

Hiashi's white eyes shone with the prospect of putting the shoe on the other foot and garnering some retribution for his fallen clansmen, and was prepared to issue the signal to counterattack until Kakashi stayed his hand, "Hatake-dono? You've given us more than enough, telling me methods to use to fight the enemy and assisting our clan in a dire moment with your stratagem. You do not need to do anymore."

"Well I can do a _little_ more. The Uchiha Clan isn't really friendly with me." Kakashi said with an eye-smile as he made formed the tiger hand-seal, "Here. Let me see what else I can weed out for you since I'm already in the midst of it. Doton: Doryuu Taiga (Earth Release: Earth Flow River)!"

Dropping off of the wall onto the muddy ground right beneath it, Kakashi caused a landslide of the loose, slick earth to cascade down the hill. The ascent of the Uchiha attackers would only be that much more difficult from this point forward.

"You really are the man of 1000 jutsu." One of the bewildered Hyuuga Clan members remarked as all of them watched Kakashi go to work.

"I need a squad of volunteers!" Hiashi shouted, getting an immediate eight shinobi to land on the wall next to him, kneeling, "Hatake-dono is willing assist in taking out the ranged artillery of the enemy by lending his ninken summons. Will you follow them to dispose of the enemy?"

"Yes Hiashi-sama!"

This battle was turning around. What a godsend for Copy Ninja Kakashi to arrive when he did out of the blue.

It wasn't like he could really let the castle fall. He had civilians with him he needed to protect for goodness sake. There wasn't any running for him here. Not from this.

"Be right back." Kakashi said as he rushed through the walls again and onto the premises, fleeing to where he'd left Teuchi and Ayame to sell food to the Hyuugas until the battle broke out. Knocking on the shut up ramen cart, Kakashi called out to the people inside, "Teuchi-san, Ayame-san, are you two alright in there?"

"We're fine Hatake-san." Teuchi called out from inside, "We'll be alright here, but I didn't think hiring a ninja would lead to us actually getting involved in a clan battle of all things."

"Well just sit tight." Kakashi told him, "They aren't getting this far from the looks of things, and we'll be getting the hell out of here the second things die down, so don't worry."

XxX

(With Naruto)

Neji expertly led his contingent of Naruto, Tenten, and Hinata to the back of the embattled castle's grounds, taking them into the back of the clan armory where they descended through a hidden hatch into a cave underneath the hilltop compound.

Hinata's eyes kept trying to see what was going on through the hill with her Byakugan, but eventually they went too far for her to see the slightest outline of anything through the hill any longer. It didn't fill her with a very confident sense in her stomach. At first she could see outlines of people falling, and from their position on the hill she knew that they were Hyuuga Clan members.

It was scary. She'd heard plenty about the great battles waged between the Senju and the Uchiha, the last major one occurring four years ago, and this to her was horrible enough. She didn't know just how much this paled in comparison to those titanic fights.

"We're almost there." Neji said. His Byakugan was stronger than Hinata's, thus he was able to see more of the battle before it became impossible for him to see through anymore of the hill to watch from afar. He was able to keep his composure though. This wasn't some last effort to have them escape to salvage something of the clan. It was merely to keep a vulnerable point of contention away from the enemy, "This cave opens up just ahead."

Naruto and Tenten jumped their way down upcroppings of rocks to follow behind the lead Hyuuga of the party. He was the one that seemed to know where they were going more than anyone else, "Wow." The bun-haired kunoichi said as she looked around at all of the different corridors that he'd been taking them through, "I guess you need that kekkei genkai down here or else you'd get lost."

"That's supposed to be the idea." Neji said, "It wouldn't be much of an escape route if our enemy could catch up to us just by following us down here."

"True." Tenten seemed rather embarrassed. She could have fallen back on the old tried and true excuse of not being a clan ninja but that wasn't very dignified, and she had her pride, clanless even as she was, "Forget I said anything."

"Think nothing of it." Neji replied, "For the time being we're in this together, and the entire point of this being a secret was that people aren't supposed to know much about this."

Eventually they came to the end of the cave and found themselves standing at the edge of a sheer drop situated in a deep crevice that led straight down into a rapidly moving river hundreds of feet below. Straight across was a small gap fissuring a path into the opposite wall, but with the distance between the two openings there wasn't a chance that a single one of them could clear it.

"My ass we're jumping that!" Naruto shouted over the echoing sound of crashing water below them, "This is a dead end!" Neji just shook his head and pointed over to a nearby wall outside of the safe position. Naruto leaned his head out and saw the wall tagged with a seal tag, with another one on the other side as well, "Oh. A barrier?"

"It disguises the bridge." Hinata said quietly with a small smile, "Even our doujutsu can't see it unless we're standing on it directly."

Naruto set out an experimental foot on what seemed to be thin air only to find that it was planted firmly on a surface. Emboldened by this, he took a full step forward and suddenly found that he was indeed standing on an extremely well-made stone bridge. Oh man, that was good fuuinjutsu to disguise such a thing. He had to get him some of that.

To everyone else behind him it looked like Naruto was levitating. With a smirk and a shake of his head, Neji walked onto the bridge as well, "Are you both coming?"

Tenten nodded and looked over at Hinata before both of them set out as well. These were clan secrets. Even Naruto seemed to accept some of these things even if he didn't understand them. The entire two days since they had come across Hinata had hit her like a whirlwind.

Clan secrets, clan laws, clan techniques, clan this-and-that… they were all so strange.

Even if he didn't seem to like some of these things, Naruto was rolling with the punches. She knew that she should have figured out a way to do so as well, but it was just hard. She didn't grow up with any of this.

Neji's footsteps stopped after a short time as he stopped and seemed to be considering something that he'd only just seen, "…There are charges planted on this bridge."

Everyone else froze and Hinata turned on her own Byakugan to confirm it. Indeed, there were explosives planted on some of the underside of the bridge around some of the supports down on the opposite end, "T-They aren't ours are they?"

"We never booby-trapped our escape route for pursuers." Neji said sneering as he could see something trying to hide underneath the bridge, "And they're too few in number to be anything that our clan would have already set well in advance. These tags are new."

So someone else had already made it there to set the trap.

Naruto cracked his knuckles and stomped his foot hard on the big bridge several times, "Come on out…" He said under his breath before shouting it out loud, "Come on out now! We already know you're here!"

There wasn't any response at first until a Shunshin disguised someone moving from underneath the bridge to the surface, one hand set on their hip in a bit of a cocky posture, "I wasn't even done setting the explosive tags on this bridge. There aren't enough here to bring it down." The person said over the sound of the water below, "Is the battle going that bad that you had to flee the castle already?"

Neji began walking forward to do battle with this person that was obviously an Uchiha, but he found Naruto marching ahead faster than he was, "Uzumaki-san. This is my battle to fight. It's Hyuuga against Uchiha. You don't have any stake in this conflict."

Naruto only stopped to turn around and grin widely at Neji, "Hey don't give me any of that crap about how it's your duty as a Branch underling to put yourself at risk for the Main House or whatever. Just sit back."

"What are you doing Naruto!?" Tenten yelled at him as he kept walking forward, "This isn't our fight!"

"Says who?" The estranged Uzumaki replied, "Yeah Neji… your mission's supposed to be to protect Hinata. That was what that guy told you to do. So let me fight him first."

Neji just focused between Naruto and the Uchiha boy, alternating to try and make sense of what was up, "Why would you want to do something like that?"

"I kinda have unfinished business with him." Naruto let out cryptically.

Not cryptic enough for Neji to miss picking up on however, "I see." This had to have been one of them that Naruto had run up against beforehand. To have something to prove against a dangerous enemy, not the smartest course of action, "Say no more. But if you lose-."

"If I lose you can definitely take him on." The whisker-marked blond confirmed. The bridge didn't look like it would be big enough for more than two people to comfortably fight on in close anyway. For him and Neji to take part it would have had to be either/or. That didn't account for someone with more ranged capabilities however…

Tenten just stared with her mouth open before shouting again, "You can't be serious you dumbass! You're going to fight him alone? At least let me or somebody else help!" Hell, she was the only one that technically could have helped without the numbers being a detriment to battle efficiency.

She severely doubted that Naruto was considering this when he stepped up. She just figured that he wanted to show his ass after being forced to run away from the Uchiha Clan before this.

"No!" With accentuation, Naruto pointed straight back her with a frown, "And if you jump in anyway I'll be pissed!"

The following stream of non-childlike obscenities that Tenten launched at Naruto and the insults sent his way about comparisons between his intelligence and that of inanimate objects notwithstanding, he pressed on forward until he was close enough to get a good look at the Uchiha.

Yep. It was definitely that kid that had set the hounds on him in that clearing that started all of this.

Same blue shirt, same white shorts, same weird spiked-up hairstyle. The only difference from before was that his eyes were black instead of Sharingan red, "You really did make a mess after you ran away from me the last time didn't you?"

"I didn't run away from YOU." Naruto specified, squinting his eyes at his apparent foe, "I was running away from the bunch of guys you sicced on me. Jerk."

"I have a name Uzumaki kid. It's Sasuke."

"Well I have a name too. It's Naruto."

"I thought it was 'dumbass'. From the way that girl in the pink yelled it I figured it was your name."

Honestly, Naruto didn't step in to keep Neji from fighting due to any sort of thoughts to help him out, though that was a byproduct of his actions. No, Naruto just wanted to settle what little score he had with Sasuke here. He had his pride after all, and if there was anything he hated doing it was running away.

"**Like I told you, no mercy for a second Naruto. He won't have any on you."**

The moment one of them moved a muscle both boys ran directly at each other, footsteps pounding on the stone bridge as they met and clashed. Naruto was the first to hurl punches that Sasuke slipped underneath and out of the way of before retaliating with a good one of his own that knocked Naruto into the side barricade.

Sasuke tried a flying kick that Naruto rolled out of the way of, forcing him to plant his foot on the barricade surface to stay on and continue the fight. Continuing to pursue Naruto he attempted a spinning kick that Naruto blocked, sending him sliding back a bit before things carried on.

Stepping forward with a haymaker, Naruto missed as Sasuke leaned out of the way with a smirk, 'I don't even need the Sharingan to-.' His inner monologue was thoroughly thrown off when he found himself nailed in the side of the head with a back wheel kick that Naruto rolled through and threw after missing his punch.

It was a heavy enough blow to knock him down with a thud onto the surface of the bridge. Sasuke quickly looked up after wincing with his blow, and now his Sharingan was definitely active, with good reason as well because he needed to roll out of the way of shuriken thrown at his downed form.

'Alright, that's enough of that.' Sasuke thought as he avoided the short offensive burst.

Drawing a kunai as he got back up to his feet, he found that Naruto had already done the same and this time upon meeting they clashed blades. In their close proximity, Naruto could see that Sasuke had two little dash thingies in each of his eyes. That was supposed to mean something, but what it was escaped him at the moment since he wasn't an expert on the Uchiha Clan.

"Heh… I've never fought an Uzumaki before." Sasuke said with a smirk despite the blood trailing from his mouth and the bruise on his cheek, "Kind of interesting actually."

Naruto grinned on his own end of things, "You Uchiha aren't as scary as everyone says you are." The broke away from one another and Naruto juggled his weapon in his hands before holding it at the ready again.

And that struck something of a chord with Sasuke, "I'll show you how scary the Uchiha Clan can be." He abandoned his kunai by throwing it straight at Naruto, but it was only a diversion to get him to move aside long enough for Sasuke to anticipate where he was going to dodge.

"Naruto!"

Turning around after hearing Tenten's cry and feeling Sasuke's presence, Naruto turned around to receive a fist to the mush that sent him rolling back on the bridge, 'Man he's fast!' And he definitely didn't hit with a soft touch, nor was his jutsu meant to mess around as he was soon to learn after Sasuke completed his hand-seals.

"Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu (Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu)!"

Sasuke took to the air and sprayed the ground with flames from his mouth, attempting to incinerate Naruto while he had the opening to do so. With the size of the fireball he could create, there was no escape from it without diving over the side of the bridge as far as Sasuke was concerned, and good luck with surviving that.

From afar, Tenten didn't have the benefit of eyes that could see through the fire the way that Hinata and Neji had. All she knew was that Sasuke had shot flames at a prone Naruto and he hadn't been able to move far enough away before she'd lost sight of him behind the spray of fire.

"Fuuton: Reppuushou (Wind Release: Gale Palm)!"

On the ground, Naruto and three clones held their hands together in front of their chests and kicked up enough of a wind to keep Sasuke's fire from burning the original Naruto alive. The clones didn't survive, and Naruto's foot quickly caught on fire until he put it out, but it was better than the alternative.

Wind wasn't strong against fire, but a stronger force of wind than the fire presented could deter one if only for a short while, "Damn it. They would be good at the element that's stronger than mine." Naruto said to himself as he patted the rest of the fire on his leg out. That was going to leave a burn.

A wall of flames separated Naruto and Sasuke, but the latter could see enough of him to try a second move. He would have, had it not been for the gigantic shuriken that flew through the obscuring fire that forced Sasuke to dodge, 'That's just a diversion.' Sasuke could make out enough of Naruto's silhouette in the fire to know that he'd jumped in the air the moment he threw the shuriken, thus Sasuke rose into the air to meet and intercept him.

Both of them landed kicks on one another, but Sasuke's landed deeper on the chin instead of how Naruto's landed on the chest. He was taller, thus his legs were longer and he stuck his kick better than Naruto landed his own.

The short moment of accomplishment for Sasuke didn't last long, as the Naruto he kicked vanished in a puff of smoke. Down below he was able to crane his neck and see a second Naruto standing there and taking diligent aim with one lone kunai.

Sasuke's eyes widened as Naruto let it fly. Instinctually, he turtled up and held his own kunai defensively, actually enabling him to fend it off. He still fell however, and landed roughly on the ground. It was better than what would have happened if Naruto's throw had made contact with his flesh.

Unable to safely roll through his landing, Sasuke's upper back and shoulders took the brunt of his fall on the hard stone bridge, "Ugh…" He groaned as he got back up only to see Naruto rush through the flames, drenched with water and covering his face with his arms for protection. Gritting his teeth, Sasuke stepped forward to engage him again with his kunai, but Naruto was able to stop any attempt to cut or stab by catching Sasuke's wrist.

'This guy…' Naruto thought to himself throughout the struggle until he felt Sasuke shove his sandaled foot into Naruto's belly and smoothly backroll to technically throw him off and out of their grappling fight. Wincing upon his landing, Naruto saw an upside-down Sasuke lunge from right above him in a downward stab at his head or neck and suddenly lashed out upward with a pair of kicks that knocked the kunai into the air and out of Sasuke's hands.

Sasuke's eyes followed the weapon up into the air before they quickly snapped back down onto Naruto who was making a cross hand-seal with his index and middle fingers, "A jutsu?"

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)!"

The young Uchiha had to backpedal as he found several Naruto clones chasing him down while Naruto himself was able to take a moment to catch a breath and get back up, 'What's with this guy? Does he really have that much chakra?'

Solid clones weren't supposed to be an easy thing to create. Most of them took a good chunk of chakra just to make, and these ones were complex enough to use ninjutsu in battle if they had been the ones to assist Naruto in surviving his earlier fireball.

He couldn't dwell on that now however. Sasuke grabbed the punch of one clone and threw it into the fire behind him before swaying his head and upper body out of the way of a shuriken barrage from some of the others. It didn't get in the way of his weaving through a short set of hand-seals of his own, "Katon: Housenka no Jutsu (Fire Release: Phoenix Flower Jutsu)!"

A smaller series of fireballs flew from Sasuke's mouth and took out the unprepared clones, but that still left the original Naruto, back on his feet and coming forward again. This time both he and Sasuke met and delivered simultaneous punches to the face that knocked the other back with a stumble.

This was pissing Sasuke off. He could and had taken down full-grown adult ninjas in battle, and this single kid from a Senju affiliate was staying in the game against him.

Naruto wasn't as fast as him, and his use of taijutsu wasn't as clean, but he was still landing shots. The timely calling forth of Kage Bunshin at certain points allowed openings that Naruto had no problems trying to take advantage of. If he had a fully matured Sharingan he wouldn't get mixed up for a moment, but referring to a resource he didn't have available to him was a fool's errand.

'Man he's good.' Naruto thought to himself, wincing at a cut that had opened up underneath his eye, 'I've got to hurl clones at him or he'll stop every punch I throw cold.' The only way any of his feints would work was with clone misdirection. If Sasuke didn't see him make the clones he couldn't tell the difference between them.

At the end of the bridge, Neji watched with interest, "Solid clones, and they have their own chakra network." He shook his head with a smirk, "I can't tell the difference between the original and the fakes if I don't pay attention to the spawning patterns."

"He has a pattern?" Hinata asked, not picking up on one from what she could see with her Byakugan.

"Pay closer attention." Neji more or less demanded of her, getting a nervous nod, "Every time he's called upon multiple copies, Uzumaki-san has remained at the back, out of harm's way. Whether the Uchiha boy knows this or not from the heat of battle I couldn't ascertain. Not yet anyway."

He had a point, but Tenten didn't think Neji was exactly on the money with his observation, "I don't think he's doing it on purpose." Every time Naruto called on extensive clone backup it was when he was beginning to get overrun, like a safety valve to set back some of the pressure Sasuke was putting on him, "Sasuke's not giving him a chance to use it on the offense, so the best way Naruto can use the jutsu is to get himself some space."

"You may be on to something." Neji said, seeing Tenten's point in the matter, "He's fighting better than I anticipated he would have from what I've seen, but he never struck me as the most cerebral ninja from our spar. The Uchiha boy is incredibly talented, and if he hasn't already I think he'll pick up on the way things are going soon. I don't think Uzumaki-san is fated to win this battle."

"That's not true!" Hinata said defensively, surprising Neji and Tenten as they hadn't heard her speak that loud, "It's not a matter of fate, or anything like that… it's a matter of effort! If you put enough effort in and work hard enough to prepare…" She trailed off as her courage waned once Neji's astonishment at her outburst wore off.

'Now where did that come from?' Neji wondered before putting his attention back on the high-stakes affair before them.

Back with the battle, Naruto and Sasuke were still facing off, both wondering what move they could pull out that would give one the advantage over the other.

The first to actually make another sound outside of heavy breathing was Sasuke, "I don't like the way you're looking at me." Sasuke quipped, noting Naruto's serious, focused glare.

"Well I don't like fucking looking at you." Naruto replied flippantly, "How's that?"

Sasuke narrowed his eyes at Naruto before making a hand-seal that Naruto matched by setting up his own for Kage Bunshin, "Time to put an end to this. I'm done wasting time with you. I wonder which jutsu'll be faster."

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)!" In a massive puff of smoke an entire small platoon of Naruto clones stood at the ready in front of Sasuke, prepared to finish him off as they drew kunai to do battle with, "Mine's faster." They all said in unison.

"Uzumaki-san no!" Neji shouted uncharacteristically, but it was all a matter of what he could see. Sasuke's hand-seal that he'd made at the exact moment as Naruto wasn't meant to begin a jutsu, it was to activate something remotely.

Instead of paling or scrutinizing the force against him with dread, Sasuke just smirked, "Such a moron. Later."

During the course of the battle, Naruto and Sasuke had switched positions on the bridge so often that it was just a matter of making sure that they were in position to aptly defend themselves. Sasuke hadn't been expecting Naruto to create upwards of twenty clones in one move. All he'd been expecting was for Naruto to create clones to put some distance between the two of them, and he was still expecting that.

Which made it all the more better that the jutsu put the back of Naruto's clone force at the end of the bridge that Sasuke had planted hidden explosive tags at and underneath. And he proceeded to detonate those tags to win the fight.

A rippling chain of explosions rocked the back end of the bridge with fire and debris, causing the entire structure to quake as many of Naruto's clones were snuffed out of existence. The rest dispelled after being jostled over the edge, and Sasuke couldn't see a one until a figure charged out of the smoke and dust.

'He wasn't in the back this time!' Running forward to meet him, Sasuke ducked a swipe of a kunai intended for his neck and once more switched sides with Naruto, rolling through his hand-seals once more, "Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu (Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu)!"

There was only one immediate counter on-hand for Naruto, and it was his go-to in this situation, "Fuuton: Reppuushou (Wind Release: Gale Palm)!"

Wind flew from Naruto as fire spewed forth from Sasuke's mouth again. The volatile element met the one that could make it even more so just as it was beginning to form into fireball shape. The wind blew through its interior and blew some of the yet-to-pack fire back at Sasuke, causing the jutsu to expand and explode in both of their faces, sending them both flying away limply.

From the cave on the Hyuuga Clan side of the bridge and from the gap that was to be the exit on the opposite side of the bridge, two fast moving blurs that caught even the Byakugan-possessing Hyuuga children off-guard as one of the rushed past them.

One caught Naruto and the other caught Sasuke before sliding to respective stops and facing off with each other with the rain falling from above.

Kakashi with his Sharingan hidden and Naruto in his arms stared at Itachi who had Sasuke in his, "Well…" The masked ninja said, "Uchiha Itachi. No wonder the attack on the castle was so fierce."

"No wonder such a powerful combination of ninjutsu managed to rebuke the advance." Itachi said in return, "The Hyuuga Clan aren't known for their abilities with elemental ninjutsu. I'm assuming that was you."

"Itachi, put me down." Sasuke complained despite being burned from the backlash of his jutsu and wounded from the overall battle. He still wanted to fight. He wasn't done with Naruto yet, "I'm not… my mission isn't-."

"The battle is over Sasuke, we're breaking off the attack and returning home." Itachi informed him, "The charge has been halted, and they're not retreating. There's no reason to destroy this bridge to trap them if they're not even retreating. Don't worry about it."

It wasn't the mission he was worried about any longer. He had a point to prove, and he wasn't done proving it yet. He could still go if he had to. He could still take that other kid down.

Kakashi looked down at Naruto, as half of his shirt was burned through to his skin underneath and he looked none too raring to go himself. His back was probably worse, "So." Naruto said excruciatingly before coughing, "This is what getting set on fire feels like."

"Partially anyway." Kakashi said to him before looking up at Itachi, "Another time perhaps. I've got my responsibility and it looks like you've got yours-." Alluding to the children, "-So fighting tonight wouldn't be for the best for either of us..."

"Agreed." With that, Itachi's body began to break apart into a flying flock of crows, Sasuke in tow, "Until we meet again Hatake Kakashi. Take care to keep training that Sharingan of yours." He concluded before vanishing altogether.

Silence other than the sound of roaring water below dragged on until Kakashi let out a sigh, "At this rate we're not going to make it to find Minato-sama before we get killed."

With nothing else keeping him from tending to his wounded charge, he turned around and walked back to Tenten, Hinata, and Neji. The first two seemed concerned at the grubby kid in his arms, but Naruto was still fully conscious and entirely aware of his surroundings.

If nothing else as Kakashi walked past them Naruto was able to give the others a pained grin and a thumbs up. It didn't particularly do that much to assuage the fears of the one child there that couldn't see how strong Naruto's heartbeat still was.

"Is Naruto going to be alright?" Tenten asked as they all followed Kakashi back to the castle grounds. Those burns on Naruto looked fairly bad. Even if he'd been able to deflect a good portion of Sasuke's fireball right back into his face, Naruto still took the brunt of it by far.

"He'll be fine." Kakashi assured her as they made their way back through the cave, "Just a little patching up and he'll be up before you know it. See? He's not even crispy. Just a little blistery."

"We've got medics on-hand, but he'll probably have to wait depending on what happened in the battle and how badly others are injured in comparison." Neji said, "Perhaps they would be willing to make an exception upon Hinata-sama's request, but…"

Naruto just waved it off, wincing one eye closed out of pain from the movement, "Ah, it's not a big deal. If I've gotta wait I've gotta wait." He felt Kakashi's step sway and the man's hold on him slip a bit, "Whoa Kakashi, are _you_ alright?"

"Just used quite a bit of chakra between the Sharingan and the jutsu I chose to use to fight against the Uchiha Clan. Don't worry about it. It's not too bad." He tilted his head to indicate that his headband was back over his eye, "It's covered so I'll get my chakra back soon." It could have been worse.

Tenten raised an eyebrow at hearing about Kakashi's apparent doujutsu. He was supposed to be famous for it, but she'd never seen it herself, "Hey, how'd you get a Sharingan anyway Kakashi-sensei?" Everyone else seemed interested in that information too.

"…I'll tell you when you're older."

"What does that even mean?"

XxX

(The Next Day)

Somehow, Kakashi had been dead-on with Naruto's healing. All he needed was a bit of attention and by the morning Naruto was as right as rain… just about. Tenten didn't even think Kakashi had anticipated that he would have gotten himself together that quickly in just one night.

Apparently according to Naruto, a Kurama, whatever the hell that was, was really good about fixing injuries. Kakashi assumed it was the biju within him, Tenten didn't know what the hell he was referring to in the slightest.

Either way, with the countryside clear of the Uchiha Clan for the time being, the getting was good and it was time to move along. The west still waited, and the Hyuuga Clan had to run damage control after the heated battle.

"And you are certain we can't convince you to stay for a bit longer?" Hiashi asked on the crossroad at the bottom of the hill, flanked by other members of his clan including Hinata and Neji, "After what you've done for us you're welcome here for as long as you'd like."

"No, no." Kakashi insisted, holding his hands up defensively to the stern Hyuuga, "We're following a lead, cold as it probably is, but going any slower won't help matters any."

"If we are to hear anything about the whereabouts of Namikaze Minato we will ensure somehow that the news gets to you." Hiashi assured him, "The least we can do is keep our ear to the ground just in case."

Teuchi and Ayame both bowed to the clan head and the rest of the clan with grateful smiles, "Thank you for allowing us a chance to make a bit of money while we stayed here." The patriarch of the travelling ramen cart said, "The opportunity is appreciated."

"Even though it was _really_ scary last night hanging around during that battle." Ayame added with a bit of a shiver, "I hope you can rebuild soon. This was a very lovely castle."

With Naruto and Tenten, they were both bidding Hinata and Neji farewell before their departure.

"As loathe as I am to admit it…" Neji started to say to Naruto, arms crossed over his chest, "…You didn't fight as poorly against the Uchiha boy as I expected you to. You acclimated yourself quite well against an enemy that I figured to be inherently superior to you."

Initially taking offense to being considered inferior to Uchiha Sasuke, Naruto eventually realized that the way Neji was, this was probably the closest he was going to get to a real compliment for his fighting… backhanded as it was either by design or accident, "Uh… thanks?"

Hinata gulped down her concerns and self-conscious nature and shakily stepped forward before presenting a small container to Naruto, "Um… in case you get hurt again." The confusion on his face gave way to her explaining herself, growing ever red-faced as she tried to do so, "This is good for wounds. Y-You can use it for your burns that you have right now if you need to."

Naruto inspected his bandage-covered arms and neck before grinning over at Hinata, "Oh, that's alright. I'm fine. I don't feel that bad really." He heard a sigh and found the ointment placed in his hand by an exasperated Tenten, "Oi, what the hell?"

"Just take it Naruto. It's a gift, and it's not like you couldn't use it after yesterday." His brown-eyed partner said with a roll of those emotive orbs before sharing a look with Ayame.

Tenten looking over at Hinata and gave her a wink for support. Hinata just smiled and averted her eyes to try and retain what subtlety she had left given the situation. The moment was lost on Naruto however.

Totally missing the byplay between the two girls, Naruto just shrugged and placed it right into the supply pouch on the back of his hip. They had a point. He did get messed up quite a bit, even in regular training so he could definitely use it, "Alright. Thanks a lot Hinata, that's really nice of you."

Neji raised an eyebrow at the normally timid Hinata doing something so against the nature that he expected of her. Did watching someone her age like Naruto stand up against the Uchiha Clan the way he did really do that much for her?

"Hey." Naruto said with a quiet sharpness to get his attention, "Remember what I said. Work on it… and I'll see if I can work on… hrmrfrbrrr." He muttered softly, covertly shooting his eyes up at his own forehead several times to represent something. It wasn't lost on Neji, causing him to go wide-eyed, "It'll probably take a long while though 'cuz I'm still learning seals, but don't quit. Who knows what you can change with the right people."

"And Hinata-sama is the right person?"

"I'd like to think so. Just give it a shot would you?"

Neji shut his eyes and nodded before extending a hand to shake, "I'll be the judge of that." First to Tenten and then to Naruto with both accepting, "Take care. It would be a shame if you survived this and lost your lives elsewhere. I'd be interested in hearing from the two of you again."

Ayame was already back in the cart ready to go, with Teuchi up front ready to drive the team of oxen. Situated on the top of the cart, Kakashi beckoned his young charges to come along so that they could go and continue on to the west.

"Finish saying your goodbyes. It's time to go now." Kakashi said, taking his seat to observe and take guard duty.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Naruto dove through the serving window of the ramen cart, popping up behind the bar with a cheeky grin that Ayame pulled at chidingly for such a dumb action when Tenten did the actual civilized thing in just going through the back door, "Bye guys!"

The cart began to move and roll down the road as the Hyuuga Clan took a short while to see them off, all standing stoically with the exception of Hinata who gave a shy little wave as if she were embarrassed to do so.

What a two day period. Never again. At least never again intentionally.

It was a serious learning experience though. Naruto had never even met other clans himself before, and Tenten hadn't ever met a real ninja clan period. Here they'd befriended members of one that had rather archaic customs and Naruto had fought against members another that had almost killed him.

Speaking of which.

"What was it like?" Tenten asked after they'd gone down the road a ways, "Fighting the Uchiha Clan. It's supposed to be smarter to try and run from even one full-fledged member than to try to fight one and win for a normal ninja."

Sitting in a stood behind the bar and leaning his elbows on it to look out of the serving opening at the landscape passing them by. His eyes drifted to the bandages wrapped around his arms, temporary reminders of the last battle, "I can totally beat that Sasuke guy. Just wait and see."

For some reason the prospect of fighting with him again made him excited. Call him sick in the head if you needed to, but he still had unfinished business.

Ayame sat next to Naruto behind the bar and let out a sigh, "Naruto-chan… this was just a one-time thing out of the blue. It's not like you're even going to try and fight the Uchiha Clan again on purpose." Even this time was completely unplanned. Naruto wasn't that nuts and he was still just ten years of age, "What are the chances you'll even see the same kid again?"

Besides, from the way they were travelling they were leaving the country anyway. Even if it occurred again, it wouldn't be anytime soon.

XxX

(Uchiha Clan Headquarters – Central Hi no Kuni)

Ever since waking up the next morning after being healed from his battle, Sasuke did nothing but stare at the ceiling from his bed, constantly activating and deactivating his Sharingan in deep thought. Admittedly there wasn't much else for him to do since he'd been ordered to take bed rest while he finished healing, but the doctors still joked with him that overusing his eyes like that would make him go blind.

He turned his head to the door upon hearing it open and smiled slightly at the sight of his older brother entering, "Itachi."

"How are you doing Sasuke?" Itachi asked, standing sternly in the middle of the bedroom floor, "You seem to be well on the mend."

Sasuke lifted a bandaged hand in front of his own frowning face and formed a fist, "I'm fine. It wasn't that bad. Just a little recoil from my jutsu." When part of it got blown back into his face by that Uzumaki kid. Silence lapsed between the two until Sasuke broke it again, "I'm sorry Itachi. I failed."

Itachi stared long and hard at his younger brother. That eagerness to prove himself. Others in the clan saw it as a positive, as he was willing to put in the work it took to improve and he was willing to do the things needed to increase the prestige of the clan to show the fruits of his labor.

He himself couldn't help but look at it and see a retread of what happened to him by the time he was Sasuke's age. The things he had to see and do he wished he never did, but Sasuke hadn't been there yet for all of the battles that he _had_ been in.

It was a pipe dream to hope that he never would be, and even today the morning after they'd returned in the dead of night Itachi had been chewed out in so many words by his father for the approach he'd taken with Sasuke more than the outcome of the battle with the Hyuuga Clan.

The only solace that their father had was stated that at least he hadn't placed Sasuke with the artillery team and was actually willing to let him get some experience the way that he did. He would have rather Sasuke been front-line tested however.

"Failure can be perceived in many different ways Sasuke." Itachi said rather vaguely, much to Sasuke's confused consternation.

"We didn't defeat the Hyuuga Clan, and I didn't even destroy the escape bridge." Sasuke said, basically summing things up as he saw them from the battle, "…That doesn't exactly sound like any of us succeeded."

"Well that all depends." Itachi moved forward and poked Sasuke on the forehead, "From a more intrinsic perspective, tell me exactly what you lost." Sasuke laid there for close to a minute without really coming up with a credible answer, as expected, "Well could you tell me if you gained something?"

"Experience."

"Which was more than you had going in." He confirmed with a bit of a smile himself, "I myself, and the rest of us who've returned gained firsthand knowledge of how to deal with fighting against a new enemy. What to do that works and what not to do." He wasn't going to go into what exactly they'd lost since he wasn't going to make his own point moot.

"…And someone I want to fight again, to prove I'm the one that's gotten stronger."

Itachi hadn't really been expecting that much, but the short run-in with the blond Uzumaki boy must have left a deeper impression than he originally had assumed. Perhaps that was just the competitive nature that Sasuke possessed coming forth.

Either way, with his bit spoken, Itachi exited the room and shut the door for privacy before heading back on down the hall to attend to his own business.

As he walked he came across another Uchiha in the hallway that he exchanged pleasant greetings with before continuing on past him. He would have had he not been called back at the last second.

"Ah, Itachi-san." The man in question had dark, spiky hair much like most of the clan and a pair of black eyes. He wore blue pants with a white belt, black sandals, and a high collared blue jacket with the clan crest on the back, open to show he had a mesh shirt on underneath, "So that is you. If you're not still out I take it the campaign against the Hyuuga Clan stalled."

"Indeed." Itachi said, stopping to have a bit of a talk with his senior by around a decade, "Unfortunately, unlike we had anticipated from the actual members of the clan they actually had a person that was able to take advantage of the terrain presented to them. If you'd have been there you'd know what I mean Obito-san."

Obito used to be one of the more uncharacteristic Uchiha Clan members prior to over ten years ago. He'd been extremely outgoing, even with outsiders, as if they were close friends. He had been reluctant to fight battles against other clans, even the Senju. He still seemed to be rather sociable, but to those that knew him back then and were still alive to recount the difference, something had changed drastically about him over the years for whatever reason, and Itachi couldn't see it since he'd never known the man personally.

He would definitely take their word for it though. Obito was a very high-class Uchiha ninja, and had achieved the very vaunted Mangekyou Sharingan ability.

But this was exactly why Itachi was completely willing to believe that he had changed drastically from however he used to be; due to the fact that he had the Mangekyou Sharingan to begin with. Itachi knew full well what it took to receive that doujutsu, and with what it required he could fully understand how someone could find themselves changed by the trauma that had to occur to receive it.

God knows he changed from it.

So Itachi was cordial with Obito, even if he wasn't particularly the most sociable in the world.

Obito set a hand on Itachi's back in a friendly manner, "Hey, it's not a big deal. Nobody wins them all. Hell, even the strongest Uchiha ever lost more than a few of 'em in his day yeah? Just so long as you can keep on protecting what you fight for, that's the only thing."

"That's a very astute way to look at things." Itachi admitted aloud to Obito. It was something that he agreed with entirely. So long as there was one thing in particular that he wanted to preserve above all else, that was all he needed to push forward through the bloodshed, "…If you don't mind, what is it that you fight for?"

"Huh?" It was as if the question almost caught him off-guard.

Itachi had no problems with elaborating however, "Myself? Now I fight to protect Sasuke. I want to ensure that he doesn't have to develop the way that I did on the battlefield. I want him to be strong, and achieve his own goals… but not at the cost of becoming like me. I can't even remember what used to drive me in the past any longer."

There was a hint of melancholy if one were to pick up on the nuances in Itachi's normal behavior as opposed to right then, subtle though they were.

"So what is your own reason?"

Obito just shook his head and gave what Itachi could only describe as a haunted smile, full of regrets, anger, and anything else you could imagine that would go with it, "Me? I don't really have one anymore." He said, and apparently confusion somehow showed itself on Itachi who was usually credited with having an immaculate poker face, "Heh, don't worry about me kid. I'm no one. I don't really want to be anyone either to be honest. I'll tell you what, tell me more about that battle later alright?"

Obito turned to walk away again as Itachi's mind caught back up to the fact that the conversation had been disengaged.

That was a strange run-in.

Oh well, he would do just that for the man if nothing else, "Certainly." Itachi said as he turned and went off in his own direction, "There's plenty to tell, such as the way the battle unfolded, the presence of Hatake Kakashi, and the rumored jinchuuriki boy of all people. I almost didn't think the rumors were true."

Had Itachi not had his back to Obito he would have seen him nearly take a misstep, but just as quickly it was as if he'd just taken another simple move forward, "That _does_ sound really interesting. I'll hold ya to that Itachi-san. I'd like to hear how true that weird rumor is." He said with a wide smile on his face that he quickly quashed.

It had been just the two of them in the hall, just a passing meeting of cordiality, and then they were on their own separate ways once more.

…As if nothing had ever happened at all.

* * *

**Alright, so that's the first dealing with the Uchiha Clan over the last two chapters. Maybe that'll let you in a bit on how things are in this universe, and more depth will come soon over time if you're feeling antsy about getting a good chunk of it. I can't logically explain everything straight up like this is a textbook. That wouldn't work.**

**So now I bid you farewell. Until the next time our paths cross.**

**Kenchi out.**


	6. Follow the Buzzards

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. I'll trade Kishimoto a home-prepared grilled cheese sandwich for the rights. I make killer grilled cheeses... laced with heroin.

It's the pepper-jack, American, and Monterrey cheese blend that'll pull you in. It's the smack that'll keep you coming back. Until you trade your money-grossing manga franchise to me for just one more sandwich.

* * *

_Here's the thing. I have no idea why anybody would want to live in the desert. _

_It is the most miserable climate to live in on the planet. I've been in arctic places, and I've been in the desert, and when it's really kicking, the desert sucks. Call me dumb or whatever you'd like, but I'd rather freeze to death than die of thirst. That's just me. Then again, it's really hard nowadays for the cold to affect me, but I think even when I was a kid I would have felt that way._

_Towns in the desert are perfectly fine. But I think that might be more because of the fact that you've spent days travelling over nothing but sand, rationing your water, eating food that gets sand in it, and shaking sand out of your shoes until you finally find a nice little place with people, and water, and those nice little houses built with that thick stone or clay stuff that keeps it cool inside._

_The Sand Nomads are total badasses though. Those are the ninjas that live out in the desert. All they do is move around and travel, getting work wherever they can across Kaze no Kuni. But they don't venture outside of the country very often. The one thing they all share though, is that they are bound to the deserts. They can't leave you see. Honor bound not to._

_It's not just some custom the way everybody outside of their culture used to think. There's actually a VERY good reason for it, and I really wish I hadn't had to find out what it was the way I did when I was ten._

_They're called Sand Nomads because it's really just a blanket term for ninjas in the desert. Unlike the rest of the world, even in families they don't recognize clan affiliation and those not directly related don't acknowledge one another as anything other than rivals for business. _

_They're small families, sometimes no bigger than three or four, very close-knit so that they can maximize the amount of money they make for the work they do. Because of the small numbers involved in any family feud and the fact that most of Kaze no Kuni is desert, their constant state of warfare wasn't as widely destructive as the ones you'd find anywhere else, but there was more of a chance of a single lineage getting wiped from the planet if things got too much out of hand. _

_Also, going back to the thing I mentioned before as to why they never left the desert; there was one big factor that kept them from wasting too much effort in fighting each other, and it was none too pleasant at all._

_Uzumaki Naruto – 'End of Clan War Era Memoirs'_

**Chapter 6: Follow the Buzzards**

* * *

"It's hoooooot." Naruto whined, from the beating he was taking from the unforgiving sun. He and Tenten were seated up front in the cart with Kakashi driving while Teuchi who usually drove took a rest in the cart interior… which was somehow climate controlled, "Can we go back inside?"

Tenten was slouched up against Naruto in the seat, looking half-awake and red-faced from the heat, "I think… I hate Kaze no Kuni." She said, getting Naruto to nod in agreement as they both groaned pitifully.

"Come now. We're the guards of this transport, which means we have to stay vigilant. So no, you can't go inside." Kakashi said, seemingly unfettered by the sweltering heat of their surroundings despite wearing his facemask and hearing his kids groan, "It's not that bad. You're both over-exaggerating."

"WE'RE IN THE DESERT!" Naruto and Tenten both yelled at the same time, the open-air echo of their simultaneous cry was drowned out by a howling of the wind blowing sand from the tops of surrounding dunes.

"It's a dry heat." Kakashi rebutted, "Besides, you've both got on plenty of sunblock, so you won't get sunburned. I thought you two were grown up enough to handle a little desert climate. If you've got enough energy to waste on yelling, you're not that bad off."

Tenten didn't know that the desert would be so hot (so sue her). When she said something about hearing of Minato going west she didn't think they'd go that far west. That was a long way outside of her comfort zone for someone that grew up around one village near the middle of Hi no Kuni for her entire life.

She would never complain about a summer in that country ever again either, as even a spring in Kaze no Kuni was brutal. Just wait until summer. That was when the sandstorms would kick up.

As they continued to ride, eventually Naruto perked up from looking out along the distance, "Ooh! Ooh! Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)!" Quickly popping a clone into existence he sent it out with express purpose, "Oasis! Go!" Saluting obediently, the clone went off to check on the fresh, pristine water source only for Naruto to frown thirty seconds later and sit back down in his seat, "Nevermind. Another mirage."

"If there was an oasis anywhere, there would be a settlement of some sort around it." Kakashi told Naruto as this had been the fifth time he'd done that in the last three hours. He pretty much knew that certain aspects of the jutsu would be abused due to how easily Naruto could perform it, but this was still rather absurd, "We have water inside you know."

"…Let me get some water from inside then."

"Hmm, no. We'll drink at lunch. We have to save it in case there's nowhere for a while to get more."

Save it? They had a full tank! The stand hadn't had any customers since they'd left a border village where they resupplied and did some business. They refilled _after_ they'd closed shop, and in the last day and a half since travel in the desert began they couldn't have had more than ten full glasses worth of water each. Teuchi and Ayame had less since they didn't train outside during breaks and were able to stay inside the significantly cooler cart for most of the day.

"I'll tell you what." Kakashi said, drawing the oxen dragging the cart to a stop before making a showy exit onto the dunes with a Shunshin. He figured now was as good a time as any for some impromptu training, "If you can beat me I'll let you alternate shifts outside with each other. If you can't you have to stay out here _and_ you both have to resituate to the top of the cart so we can get a better view of what's around. Or we can just keep going and you'll get no consequence for the choice made."

Both Tenten and Naruto had to stop and think about that quite heavily. Leaning in to Naruto she started to try and whisper out of range of Kakashi's hearing, "What do you think? We'll travel until sundown, and the sun doesn't go down for a longer time out here."

So if they lost they'd be on top of that cart for a long, long time yet.

On the other hand, it didn't really matter if they wound up on top of the cart or not. Pretty soon since the sun would keep moving in a westerly direction and they were facing west, it would be beating them right in the face with no chance for shade, so doing nothing would still result in a sunbath from hell.

Naruto was also looking at the pros of the situation, "If we win we can go back inside. Or at least one of us can and then we can switch. I swear, it feels like it's climate-controlled in there. It can't be any warmer than 70." Outside it was closer to 105, "And I think Kakashi's got a tube behind that f'n mask of his that he's got hooked to a water pouch or something. There's no way he's not thirsty too."

Yes, they had flasks with water on their persons. For emergencies only. You didn't drink that water to sip whenever. It was for when there was _nothing_ left. Kakashi had expressly rapped Naruto's knuckles with the flat end of a kunai for trying to drink it at his leisure.

"Well?" Kakashi asked, waiting out on the sands for them to make their decision to fight or not, "I know what my name stands for, but I'm not going to stand out here all day and shoo the birds away. Buzzards don't really scare easily."

With a nod to one another, Naruto and Tenten jumped up onto the roof of the cart before both were concealed in a puff of smoke.

"Very well." Anticipating the forthcoming attack, Kakashi didn't even bother to reveal his Sharingan to take them on. It was just training after all, "The lesson is about to begin."

XxX

(Central Hi no Kuni – Senju Clan Main Headquarters)

Upon Tsunade's return from the summit with the Uzumaki Clan she was immediately set upon with news from the mainland by the other high-ranking members of her own clan. Most notably that the Uchiha Clan had recently taken part in a battle on the western side of the country.

The first thing she wanted to know was how bad their casualties were, not if they had been victorious or not. Offensives in the never ending war with the Uchiha had to be measured in how many lives were taken during the course of the battle, and opportunities to strike at the heart of the enemy had to be set by measuring their own manpower against the enemy's.

Apparently the Uchiha had lost nothing worth thinking that an attack against them would end any differently than the last major battle they had fought four years ago that had ended in a stalemate.

So that left everything at the regular status quo that it had been for years.

In other words, no new business had come forward since she had left. As disappointing as it was to find that nothing more had swung in their favor, it was reassuring to know that nothing had gone wrong either.

As Tsunade wandered about the main building of the compound, she attracted attention due to the guest she had with her. A representative on behalf of the Uzumaki Clan's Nagato, who was surprisingly not an Uzumaki. His nigh expressionless friend Konan.

"Tsunade-sama." One of the Senju Clan shinobi said, taking it upon himself to question the odd woman's presence with their leader, "What is this woman doing here?"

Tsunade stopped in the hall and chose to address the question, "This woman is intending to hunt for the jinchuuriki boy. Those rumors, they aren't rumors. He's real." She looked over at Konan who didn't seem to care one way or the other about the scrutiny she was getting in the strange place, "She's to be given full accommodations as our guest until she departs in pursuit, and we'll be sending her with a partner."

Konan raised an eyebrow in curiosity at this announcement, "With all due respect Tsunade-sama…" She began to say, "…There's no need to send a team of shinobi with me on this mission. I alone will be more than enough to kill the jinchuuriki, and I can assure you that I will carry out the will of both your clan and Nagato-sama's. At all costs."

The wizened Senju Clan leader could tell that this was not just being said to reassure her. This woman would do anything she felt she had to do to protect Nagato and everything that he stood for.

She would do anything for that man, Tsunade didn't doubt that for one moment.

Why this woman, a kunoichi not of the Uzumaki Clan, had such unconditional loyalty to Nagato, Tsunade did not know. Nor was it her business. But from her eyes, this was an extremely dangerous ninja.

"I'm not saying that you won't." Tsunade reasoned diplomatically instead of throwing her weight around as the head of the strongest clan in the world, "But I can assure you, I don't plan on sending an entire team to slow you down. I'm sending one man to assist you, and I can assure _you_ that you'll find his abilities most helpful in dealing with anything having to do with the biju. You can't take too many chances."

Every Senju Clan member listening knew exactly who Tsunade was referring to. The only man in generations that had developed the bloodline of their strongest ninja ever, and he wasn't even a born ninja of the clan.

Tsunade waved her hand, summoning one of her female underlings to her, ready to take her order, "Go and tell Tenzo that he needs to prepare to be sent out on a possibly long-term mission."

Without wasting any words, she went off to perform the task sent to her. Even with the change in atmosphere amongst the clan, Konan was still skeptical about taking this person along, "Tsunade-sama, I'm a wandering ninja with no clan. I'm not used to working with others."

Tsunade was aware of that, but this was going to happen whether Konan was favorable to it or not. If this thing couldn't be contained, the Uzumaki Clan weren't going to be the only ones who lost face due to it. The forbidding of jinchuuriki was partially enacted by Senju Hashirama to begin with. If the Senju Clan, or their number one affiliate clan in the Uzumaki Clan went against this and didn't take the steps to fix it, the entire fabric of the system could fall apart.

War was rampant and seemingly permanent, but introducing a variable such as the allowance of the universal taboo of jinchuuriki would turn it all on its head. And the very first people the backlash would harm would be the Uzumaki and the Senju.

"It doesn't matter if you're used to teamwork or not." Tsunade insisted with a severe tone, "You will take Tenzo with you, and he will assist in taking down the jinchuuriki Uzumaki Naruto, whether it's necessary or not. Or are you really enough of a fool to look at the Mokuton (Wood Release) as a hindrance."

That got a reaction on Konan's face, "There's someone that is capable of that kind of power in this day and age?"

A smirk came to Tsunade's pink lips, "Yes. And there's nothing better for controlling the power of a biju."

XxX

(With Naruto – Deserts of Kaze no Kuni)

Kakashi stood atop a sand dune looking over at his two students who seemed to be down and out of it, "Are we done? I'm disappointed. This lasted all of twenty minutes." He then sighed and shrugged haplessly, "Come on, you both had a few good moves in that last rush!" He shouted at them.

"**You're so weak. It hurt me to watch all of that."**

'Shut up Kurama…"

"**Seriously, you couldn't hit him once? Use the girl for a human shield or something to get closer, but for the sake of my reputation you could have at least hit him ONE TIME."**

'Kakashi is _really_ good.' Naruto thought to his tenant before coughing sand onto the ground where he was buried up to his neck, "…I hate his face. I want to punch it but I can't reach it. *cough* Tenten?"

One of Tenten's buns had been knocked out of her hair during the course of the spar, and she had been lying face down in the sand until Naruto spoke to her, "Plegh." She spat sand on the ground and wiped some off of her face as she looked over at her downed partner, "Yeah Naruto?"

As they spoke to each other, Kakashi shouted out at them again, "If we're done, get to work cleaning up all of these weapons that Tenten threw!"

"You want to do one more attack?"

"You sure it'll work?"

Naruto tried to jostle himself free of the sand. At least enough so to move his hands closer together for a jutsu, "No. So what?"

"Good point." Tenten said, reaching her feet, "There's no way anything I throw is going to hit him though, so do you have any ideas?"

"No, but I trust you." He said to her, much to her confusion as to what he meant until the sand he was buried in exploded upward and twenty Naruto clones flew out of the ground, simultaneously freeing Naruto from where Kakashi had trapped him, "Just pick your shot! You won't miss!"

Kakashi raised an eyebrow at the dust trails flying up all around the battlefield, telltale signs of movement from Naruto's clones, "You really think you can make me pay enough attention to just you that I ignore Tenten?"

"Tenten's got this!" Naruto's clones chorused in unison, "Fuuton: Reppusuhou (Wind Release: Gale Palm)!"

Instead of directly attacking Kakashi, Naruto's clones used their wind jutsu to kick up sand all around the man, creating a gigantic cloud of the vision-obscuring substance, 'Not bad. Now where?' Hunkering himself down, Kakashi attempted to anticipate where a finishing attack would come from, but nothing ever happened.

When the dust cleared, Kakashi found himself all alone in that general area, with no Naruto or Tenten in sight. They were either really good at hiding… or they had just left.

But they wouldn't do that in the middle of a spar would they?

XxX

Ayame sat inside of the ramen cart just staring at the two chibi ninjas that had come barreling inside, heading straight for the copious water supply that they kept. Ninjas were weird. Even kid ninjas, as cute as they were.

"You two are going to hurt yourselves drinking like that." The teenage ramen waitress pointed out for their benefit, "Could you slow it down maybe just a tad?"

"Hurry up and drink!" Naruto beseeched Tenten as she took big gulps from the open faucet of the ramen cart's water tank, "I think I feel him coming this way!"

No way that b.s. trap they set was going to hold Kakashi for long. They were going to lose no matter what, but the prize for winning was water and the cold interior of the cart. So they were just going to take their spoils of war without having to directly defeat him.

Eventually a satisfied Tenten turned the faucet off, fully hydrated as she grabbed Naruto and threw him in front of it to take his turn, "There. Now at least we'll be good when Kakashi-sensei totally punishes us for running away."

Naruto stopped drinking for a moment to address that fact, "I say we have a minute or two before he gets back here." That meant that he had no time to beg Ayame for any ramen. By the time she finished making it, Kakashi would have long since dragged him kicking and screaming back outside.

"Just a minute or two?" Tenten felt almost offended at Naruto's estimation of when Kakashi would return, "How many Bakusaidama (Exploding Spheres) do you think I set?"

That question begged another one that was even more important, because Naruto knew that she didn't use all that she had just for this spar, "…How many do you have?"

Tenten started counting on her fingers before she quit that and started multiplication tables in her head, "Uh… more than a few?"

Naruto didn't need to hear anything else as a big smile started to split his face, "Oh, and I think I know what it's like to have a best friend now."

He would no longer be content with his time spent with Tenten unless by the end of it they'd had established at least twelve urban legends that spread from coast to coast. True or untrue, it didn't matter, just so long as they terrified the masses and were proclaimed from sea to shining sea as shining beacons of their awesome.

Also a nickname. He needed a nickname, full of alliteration. One that would strike fear into the hearts of thousands… or would look good on a t-shirt.

Marketing. It was a thing.

XxX

"Hmm." Kakashi's eye was closed in a pleasant smile as he could only have figured that Naruto and Tenten took their prize without actually winning it, "Well. I guess I'll go tie them both to the roof of the cart now."

Oh those brats were going to bake. It would build character though.

Kakashi took a single step forward and went wide-eyed in surprise. The reason being because upon the moment his foot sunk into the sand, a metal sphere with kunai welded into it bounced up into the air, spinning rapidly with an explosive tag attached to it.

As it rapidly spun around, Kakashi saw the tag rapidly burning down and only thought of one thing.

'When did she have the time to make that?'

BOOM!

Kakashi was somehow able to outpace the explosion through speed, sheer dumb luck, and well-honed reflexes and instincts that only years of experience could provide a ninja. All that dodging did however was prompt Kakashi to stumble upon another spiked ball mine.

BOOM!

Oh, those stupid kids used that temporary dust storm like pros. Just how many did she set? He was not unveiling his Sharingan just to deal with a trap set by an 11 year-old girl. And as he tripped yet another one set into the sands, he wondered just how well he'd be able to hold up to that declaration.

XxX

"You think he's out yet?" Naruto asked, eyes darting across the sands suspiciously as he leaned his head out of the back of the ramen cart. He simply couldn't enjoy the awesome cool air because of the fear of retaliation from Kakashi that he just knew was coming their way.

"Well if he isn't-." Tenten said as she stopped eating a bowl of ice cream and slowly weaved her way through hand-seals, "Ushi, Saru, Tatsu. Sougu: Koushin Ranka (Manipulated Tools: Steel Needles Wild Flower)."

A rippling chain of explosions rattled out from a short distance away where they had been sparring with Kakashi. Naruto just stared at where he could see the ruckus kicking up in the distance. Meanwhile, Teuchi and Ayame just stared at the pair of preteen terrors; one watching multiple small explosions go off, and the other eating ice cream as if she hadn't just remotely detonated them.

"I really hope that didn't kill him." Naruto said, grimacing at the thought of taking out Kakashi in such a manner, "You said those exploding sphere things shoot kunai and shrapnel chunks?"

"Yep."

"…We just killed somebody."

Teuchi wisely chose to ignore the potentially homicidal munchkins for the time being, while Ayame chose to try and show some sort big sisterly traits to try and curb them before they both became uncute and insane, "We don't celebrate death or the maiming of others in this establishment."

Naruto just blinked in his beloved ramen-providing host's direction before stepping outside, "So if I'm standing outside can celebrate it then?"

"Not quite." Kakashi whispered from the top of the cart, hanging just above the door and above Naruto's head, effectively scaring a few years off of his lifespan, "You two are horrible, evil children and every adult should be afraid of you both." Then came the disengaging eye-smile, "Good work. But you still didn't hit me, and you know what that means. Thanks for waiting Teuchi-san. I'll start driving the cart again. You and Ayame-san can remain inside."

"Aww." The deflated junior ninja pair dropped their shoulders at the unsaid order to assume the position on top of the cart.

"Oh, you're both just so adorable." Kakashi said with a delightfully detached and bright voice, fully meant to patronize, "You both should know that your frustration and disappointment are, and always will be, like fuel to me. It only makes my fire burn stronger. Now to the roof you big fat failure turtles. Get on up there."

In a matter of moments, the cart was moving again, and Naruto and Tenten were donning turbans to protect their heads from the sun beating down on them. All the while, Kakashi had managed to hide a cut on the underside of his elbow that had been given to him via the tandem trap they had used.

They weren't the only ones that could use sleight of hand.

XxX

(Elsewhere – Hours Later)

"I spy… something yellow."

"Oh, let me guess. Is it SAND!?"

"Yeah, you got it!"

"They'll never find your body."

"Well sorry for trying to make this fun."

"You're not making this fun Kankuro. You're just annoying me."

The two sources of the conversation were a young brother and sister walking through the desert, dragging deep trails in the sand. The specially prepared staffs they used for the process left black marks on the surface that remained in place even as the sand moved.

For what reason they were doing this, it couldn't be told, but both of them seemed extremely bored by the process.

"This is boring as fuck." The brother of the pair said. He was a young teenager wearing a black baggy bodysuit with a black hood that seemed to have cat-like ears to it. On his back he had a bandage-wrapped bundle with a tuft of hair sticking out at the top of it. His face was painted with sharp purple patterns and the scowl on his face at the boring job he and his older sister were doing, "We've been doing this shit all over the place for the last four months."

The older teenage girl just rolled her eyes despite feeling the same way, She had sandy blonde hair in four spiky ponytails and wore a single lavender shoulder-cut battle dress with a red sash and mesh under her clothes that went down to her left thigh as well as a separate mesh legging around the lower part of her right leg. On her back she had an extremely large metal fan just as big as she was.

"You know why we have to do this Kankuro." The girl, Temari, said, "This is the only thing that keeps the you-know-what in check, even a little bit. Be grateful. This is a new contract that's going to run out one day. It's good money and it's for a good reason."

"I know, I know." Kankuro droned, "Feel bad for dad if he had to do this alone though. He would have had to do this shit by himself if he hadn't married mom and had us. All he has to do is the intricate part in the middle, and he's got Gaara to help him with that. Imagine if they had to do that by hand instead of cheating with their jutsu."

"Like we're doing?" Temari asked rhetorically with a wry smile, "I don't think making all of those intricate marks that this seal requires would work so well if they had to do it by hand. Maybe that's why we're always the ones to take this contract? Because people can't make the seal with the same jutsu that dad and Gaara use."

Kankuro looked up into the sky at the position of the sun and sighed before spitting down at the ground, "Thank the Sage this is the last one we have to make. How far are we to finishing this circle?"

"We'll know when we see the other end where we started."

"Not funny."

The brother and sister of the desert continued through the sands of the land that their family wandered for a living until all of a sudden, the black markings of the titanic seal outskirt that they were drawing began to glow.

Knowing what the seal was meant to do, both Temari and Kankuro felt their hearts clinch up in horror before realizing that there wasn't any towering mass of sandy, tailed horror eradicating them from existence yet.

"…Is it broken?" Kankuro asked, wondering why the bane of the desert shinobi's existence wasn't smashing them flatter than sand dollars, "I don't see Shukaku, and that should be one hard thing to miss."

"It can't be broken." Temari said, stooping down to look at the portion of the circular seal they'd already drawn; the portion that detected the target when it wandered inside. It didn't need to be finished to detect, as long as something ventured inside of the portion of it that was already complete, "It's supposed to only go off when a biju wanders inside. That's how the second part of the seal that actually deals with the beast knows when to go off."

"The part that dad and Gaara are working on?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

So that left a pretty significant question for the two of them.

"…Do we go see what it is before it runs into them, or should we finish our part of the seal?"

After a moment of contemplation, they decided to continue on with their job and finish it before heading to town. They didn't need to see what had entered the circumference of the seal. If it was something dangerous, Gaara and their father could handle it or call for them. If it wasn't dangerous…

…Well, Gaara would still probably handle it anyway.

XxX

(With Naruto – Deserts of Kaze no Kuni)

"**Grr…"** Kurama growled constantly inside of Naruto's head. It was beginning to give him a headache he'd been listening to it for so long, the last fifteen minutes, **"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God! Arg, it's like a drill in one ear, and another drill in the other ear, **_**AND **__**THEY'RE MEETING IN THE MIDDLE**_**!"**

"What the fuck's wrong with you!?" Naruto eventually bellowed aloud, startling Tenten who was seated on the top of the ramen cart with him, "Nothing's happening! Nothing's happened since we got to the desert!"

"W-What?" Tenten said weakly, not knowing what was up with Naruto. His face had been twisting irritably for quite some time, but she just figured that it had been sitting on top of the cart with the sun beating down on the two of them that was pissing him off, "Naruto, what are you talking about?"

Naruto then realized that he hadn't gotten Tenten hip to the fact that he had a monstrous fox sitting in his body. It hadn't really come up, and Naruto didn't really know how to explain it. Kakashi was a go with the flow kind of guy who would probably run damage control once it came up, but clearly he wasn't keen on jumping straight into opening that potential can of worms either.

So that left him with explaining why he'd just snapped at nothing but open air with the added detriment to his 'clutch' reasoning abilities being Kurama doing what sounded like chewing on the bars of his seal cell inside of his head.

"Inner monologue?" Naruto ventured with a sheepish grin. Thankfully he had a turban to hide some of his face with by pulling it lower on his head.

Tenten just gave him a wary look before turning her attention back to being on lookout, "Ooookay. Whatever." She was beginning to come to terms with that fact that he was weird.

Uncomfortable conversation temporarily averted, Naruto turned his notice back inward, 'Seriously Kurama, what's up?'

"**I've got this brain-splitting whistling in my ears and it's getting worse!" **Kurama shouted inside of Naruto's head, **"What the hell's happening kid? Find! Out!"**

Naruto frowned and crawled forward to the front of the cart where Kakashi was driving the oxen in the heat, "Kakashi, Kurama's in a lot of pain right now." And honestly, he was starting to feel funny too. Probably from whatever was hurting Kurama, "I don't know what's up?"

Kakashi's face turned deadly serious as he addressed his youngest charge, lifting his headband to reveal his Sharingan, "…I don't see any genjutsu on you. It doesn't seem like anything I can see is affecting you." A sobering thought filled his mind at that moment, "Is the seal breaking?"

Naruto quickly put a stop to that train of thought, "No." He said firmly, "Mom locked this thing down tight. There's no way she would have told me that everything was okay if it wasn't. She might have tricked me into going with you, but she never lied to me."

He was trying to learn what he could on his own about the seal, but it was way over his head for now. If he was going to begin improving in that department well enough to finish what Kushina had started and find a way to do what he told Kurama he would do, he needed to see a more diverse array of fuuinjutsu other than the few that he himself had managed to learn.

…Now he just needed to see some more seals to kickstart that process.

In the meantime, that wasn't what was important, "Look, Kurama's really hurting in here. There's got to be something going on here that would tell us why."

"…Naruto? Kakashi-sensei?"

Tenten's worried voice got their attention as they both started peeling their eyes around the cart, but were unable to see anything. So what put the worried tone in her voice? Naruto turned back around to see Tenten, only with someone else sitting slightly off to the side of and behind her.

A boy with messy red hair and dull green eyes with black rings around them who seemed to be just Naruto's age was right there with her, sitting impassively as if he were supposed to be there. He wore a black bodysuit with short sleeves, a white cloth diagonally over his left shoulder and a large leather strap over his right, both connected to a large sand gourd over his back.

What the fuck?

His eyes looked between a terrified Tenten and a vastly confused Naruto before speaking, "…What are you doing here?"

"Uh… lookin' for somebody?" Naruto ventured to answer, unsure of why he felt that this guy would turn him into a smear on the desert surface if he wasn't on the defensive, "Who the hell are you?"

"Gaara." The boy said before setting his eyes right on Naruto, "You don't look like a biju. They don't use tricks. They just kill."

"…What?"

Gaara's single blink might as well have been a roll of his eyes, "I've spent my entire life learning how to deal with the biju. I know what I'm doing by now when it comes to them. My father has made sure of that much. You triggered our seal before it was finished. How? Only a biju can trigger it, and the source of the triggering is you."

Slowly the blocks began falling into the correct openings and things started linking up in Naruto's head.

Kurama was in pain for some unseen reason.

This guy thought Naruto was a biju or was involved with a biju.

He created a seal that was apparently supposed to activate when in contact with a biju.

Therefore, this Gaara person was semi-responsible for creating a seal meant to affect biju. This was why Kurama was in pain.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, you're saying Naruto is the source of biju power?" Tenten said in disbelief, "I've never seen one, but everybody knows what a biju is. There's no chance something like that could be in Naruto, could be Naruto himself, nothing like that. Look at him. He's way too little."

"Oi!"

Gaara shook his head, "There is no other explanation as to why the seal went off, and it led me here." He lifted his hand into the air and the cart came to an instant stop for no explainable reason, "Now what are you?"

Kakashi regarded Gaara carefully, but in his amicable smile to the desert shinobi there was a grave warning present, "Would you mind having your sand let go of the oxen's legs and the cart's wheels? We kind of need those if we want this vehicle to move."

"If you won't tell me, I'll just have to kill you to be sure." Immediately after saying that, sand raised itself in front of Gaara to protect him from being punched by Naruto, "…You have no idea how unforgiving the desert can be."

'What the hell?' Naruto wondered. His hand had been stopped cold by a wall of sand of all things.

Tenten started piecing things together from what Kakashi said and what Gaara had just done to block Naruto, "So you're strong enough with that sand to stop a whole ox team, and you caught Naruto's arm." Her only answer was the sight of Gaara lifting his hand, making a motion that he was about to tighten it and crush something, "Aw, no."

"Sabaku Sou-."

A sharp jerk of a cord from Tenten pulled up a panel on the roof of the cart that shot kunai at Gaara's face from point-blank range. Instead of turning him into a preteen pincushion however, more sand protected him from that angle, but it loosened the sand around Naruto's arm enough for action to be taken.

Tenten dove at Naruto and tackled him off of the roof of the cart, freeing his arm from the iron grasp of Gaara's sand before it could destroy the limb or creep further up his body.

Landing roughly in the desert just off of the trail that they'd been travelling on, Naruto sat up painfully with Tenten sprawled across him, "Ugh. Thanks for that. I couldn't get to my other hand to make a seal without getting it stuck too."

"You're my partner." Tenten commented wincing slightly at the fall but smiling nonetheless, "Besides, I owed you anyway… and we're still going to die."

"Huh?"

Both of them found themselves surrounded by sand that rose up from the desert around them, but before it could surround or take hold of them, golden dust of the same variety batted it down and pinned it.

Kakashi breathed a sigh of relief. He was aware of the second presence watching the area after he knew that Gaara was there. Whether the person was an enemy or not he couldn't be sure, but he knew that they were stronger than Gaara.

Which was saying quite a bit, because Gaara was stronger than Naruto and Tenten both. Even by himself. Had Kakashi not been unsure of the other man's intentions, he would have attacked Gaara the moment it became clear that hurting Naruto was his intention.

He couldn't really blame Naruto for trying to attack first. Sand Nomads didn't exactly screw around. If someone said they were going to kill you anywhere in the world, in its current state the threat was never an idle one. For a Sand Nomad to say it, they meant it. They were some of the hardest-nosed people you would ever find anywhere.

"Gaara." A man said, appearing on the road in a Shunshin comprised of gold dust. He bore a stark resemblance to Gaara with auburn hair instead of red, and a stern, weathered face. He had dark rings around his eyes similar to Gaara's, but they only lasted for as long as he manipulated the gold. His clothing consisted of a black jacket and pants with mesh armor underneath, "Stand down."

Gaara looked over in the direction of the older desert-dwelling ninja and then back to Naruto and Tenten before returning his sand to the large gourd on his back, "The source of the biju signature is the blond boy. I was doing what we were paid to do father."

"We were paid to finish the warding seals around the nearby village." Gaara's father said, walking over to his son to admonish him, "We weren't paid to fight Shukaku, even if this boy _was_ somehow connected to him. No one would pay any Sand Nomad that sort of waste of money."

Tenten looked between Naruto and Kakashi who had come over to make sure his kids were alright, "Shukaku?"

Kakashi nodded and kept a watchful eye on the Sand Nomads, "Known elsewhere as the 'Incarnation of the Sand'." He began to explain to the younger ninjas, "Shukaku is an omen of death in Kaze no Kuni due to his status as a biju, his bloodthirsty nature, and his control over sand. During full moons it gets particularly bad. He'll attack any living being in sight. Entire settlements have been destroyed in minutes because of his rage."

During this explanation, Gaara took his rebuking from his father in his own way. By staring at him without blinking, "You told me that it would be my purpose to-."

"-And that time will come Gaara. Your value to the deserts is something that can't be measured, even with all of the Gold Dust under my control." The redhead's father told him, "There is no ninja born in Kaze no Kuni with the potential to protect the deserts that you possess, but there is no rush. You're not ready to face Shukaku. Your mother left her will in your sand to protect you, but that doesn't mean you can recklessly throw your life away."

It was hard to tell just how the young nomad felt about the lecture he'd just received, whether he'd listened or not, since all he did was cross his arms over his chest until the man was finished.

There was something pent up inside of that boy. A lot of anger, or pressure on his shoulders. Something.

"I'm going to finish the seal… father." Gaara said before vanishing in a sand Shunshin. His father just watched the place that his son had been standing moments before and then turned to gaze at the foreigners.

Kakashi was the one to take the initiative, mostly because he usually gave less than a damn about how awkward moments could be between people at times. This was one of those awkward moments, "So, control over sand huh?" He said with an amicable eye-smile as he hid his Sharingan once more, "Neat."

Naruto and Tenten just seemed stunned. Neat? That was all he could say? They almost got into a fight with a guy that could literally use the desert as a weapon, and his response to the entire first meeting was 'neat'?

This was a man that simply didn't care about anything outside of his tasks and what he'd already deemed as important to fight for. Protecting the ramen cart per his contract, and getting Naruto to Minato. That was it. Other than that, literally no fucks were given about anything else around him if it wasn't a direct threat to either of those objectives.

"I'd just like to take the time to say that I feel way less safe about listening to everything you say than I first did when I started traveling with you a month ago." Tenten pointed out, wiping at a stinging sand-caused abrasion on her arm.

"Oh, you two are still here?" Kakashi said, pretending that he had forgotten the presence of the children, "Good. That cart isn't going to drive itself. Take it to the next village and wait for me would you?"

Tenten sighed and moved to the front of the cart, Naruto choosing to go in through the back to get a quick burst of cool air and pop in on his favorite ramen waitress for a second before joining his more responsible kunoichi partner out front. He left a waving Kakashi with a flipping of the bird from behind Gaara's father's back, so that he didn't see how much _respect_ Naruto had for Kakashi's unique brand of child rearing.

The older man still noticed though, and admittedly would have laughed… if adult Sand Nomads were into that sort of thing.

Ahh… that boy was going to start a clan war one of these days. Possibly several. At the same time.

"So, nice kid." Kakashi said about Gaara, completely refusing to give Naruto the satisfaction of selling the disrespectful gesture one bit, "Not that I can talk much with my own dysfunctional chibi pair running around."

Gaara's father just nodded stiffly, "Gaara is… special. For generations, Sand Nomads have studied and experimented with methods to control the small particles of substances the way that Shukaku can control sand. It's a powerful weapon."

"Hence the Gold Dust." Kakashi pointed out, noting that it had disappeared from where the man had last used it, 'He can hide it that easily.' This was a dangerous man. If a boy that had control over any sand he saw listened to his orders despite seemingly disagreeing, what was he capable of?

"Correct." The man in question said, "But Gaara. No one has ever been able to control the actual sand itself. Only substitutes that can be controlled by our methods have ever worked. No one studied these things as intensely as my wife did, to try and find a way to-." He cut himself off at that point, realizing that he was dipping into a conversation he didn't want to have with strangers, "You've met Gaara. My name is Kintetsu."

Kakashi pointed to the two kids up front, preparing to drive the cart away, and then to himself, "Naruto, Tenten, and I am Hatake Kakashi."

"Copy Ninja Kakashi?" Kintetsu voiced aloud to the aloof masked man.

"S'up."

He ignored the cavalier confirmation that this young man was indeed Kakashi and turned to look at Naruto, "And that was Uzumaki Naruto? The 'jinchuuriki' that was able to kill fifteen Uchiha Clan shinobi with one move?"

Cue the bloating of a ten year-old's self-esteem and delusions of grandeur.

Naruto grinned widely and jumped onto the top of the cart from the front, chest puffed out, "So people have heard of me all the way out here?" Unfortunately for him, Tenten grabbed him by the ear and pulled him back down into the seat to help her drive the cattle, "Ow! Tenten, come on!"

She would have no mercy. By now it was established by both herself and Kakashi that Naruto's ego was a powerful enemy. It could not be granted any quarter and it had to be beaten back furiously when it reared its head or else terrible things would happen.

"I thought it was eight Uchiha Clan members?" Tenten said to him, finally letting go of him once she was certain he'd been sufficiently cowed for the moment, "Where did fifteen come from?"

Actually it was three, but Naruto didn't care, "I don't know, but I like it a lot." He was in the mix of international rumors now. That was the coolest thing he could ever imagine happening to him, "Now I just need a nickname, like Kakashi's or mom's."

Eight sounded cooler than three. Fifteen sounded even cooler than eight. So fifteen was the new number until proven otherwise or a better sounding number came up. Naruto now loved international rumor mills.

XxX

(With Kushina – Uzumaki Clan Village)

"What?" Kushina said flatly, sitting on a bench in the main courtyard of the clan head's mansion. On this day of her stay as Nagato's 'guest' she was visited by one of her nieces that was actually relatively close to her and Naruto. Sometimes for better or for worse, but still the closest, in ten year-old Karin, "…Sorry sweetie, run that past me again."

One good thing about Karin, was that she heard a lot of things, from her parents, other ninjas in the clan just from passing by, and from other kids that had heard things from their parents or just from passing by. So anything that Kushina couldn't learn by straight-up asking inside of the mansion grounds, she could usually learn by asking Karin. If Karin didn't know how to answer one of Kushina's questions on one day in particular she would figure it out and have it for her by the next time she visited.

So when asked if Karin had heard anything at all, big or little, about Naruto in passing, the girl didn't take long to have something for her favorite kickass auntie.

Karin played with her glasses on her face but repeated the info from before, "Well apparently Naruto popped up around a mainland battle between the Hyuuga and Uchiha Clans. I heard he killed 20 Uchiha Clan members in one move."

Rumors got bloated more farfetched levels over long distances. In addition to that, the haze of large-scale battles particularly gave rise to more implausible stories than without.

And knowing what they did about potential jinchuuriki might, the Uzumaki Clan were subject to believe ones of a certain subject and propagate them for safety's sake.

Kushina was not one to believe the word of mouth. She was smart, and was aware of the fact that until he realized just how being a jinchuuriki worked, Naruto was a normal ten year-old ninja.

Even so however…

"Yes, my baby's the center of his own first bullshit rumor!"

Sometimes you had to enjoy the small things.

XxX

(With Naruto – Kaze no Kuni Desert Village)

Out of the blue while sitting on a low-lying roof that allowed them a good view of a whole marketplace, Naruto felt a crushing measure of pride that put a face-splitting grin on his face in the middle of guard duty with Tenten, "You know that feeling of getting hugged from a thousand miles away?"

"…No?" Tenten didn't know how to respond to such an awkward question.

"Neither do I." Naruto said with a shrug, "But if I did, I think it would feel a lot like I feel right now."

After reaching the village, Kurama's pain subsided and he decided that with his splitting headache it was best to take a nap. He usually slept the day away when he was bored with watching the things that Naruto did, but this time at least he had a real excuse for it.

Sundown was chow time in the middle of this village as the ramen stand opened up shop. Apparently ramen was universal cuisine, which was good for business. All things considered, getting out there was a hell of a trip, but it was looking to be quite lucrative for the clients of the ninja. The line for food simply wasn't dwindling.

It made for a busy Tenten too, who had to keep an extremely close watch on every person that drifted around the cart. She'd noticed a few individuals with ninja-like weapons, but they didn't do anything other than order for their travelling parties which ranged from their families, to the people they were under contract to protect. Sand Nomads.

"You know, the way Minato-sama works reminds me a lot of the Sand Nomads." Tenten said, drumming up some conversation by choosing to talk about the reason that they had come out to the desert to begin with. And it had obviously gotten Naruto's attention, "He travels around, accepts missions off of contact rumors… hey do you think he's from Kaze no Kuni originally? He never said where he was from."

He tried to downplay it of course. After all, he had an awesome kickass mom who was worth at least two parents all on her own. If his dad didn't want to show his face around that was just fine with him. Even so, Tenten wasn't absentminded enough to miss the fact that his posture stiffened in interest, "I wouldn't know. I've never even seen the guy."

"You look so much like him I thought he was with you." Tenten admitted, "That was why I really thought you were a ninja and approached you in the first place. He took missions like the one that you and Kakashi-sensei are on, so I thought he'd come back around and brought his son this time."

"Well sorry to disappoint you." Naruto drawled dryly, "S'just me and Kakashi."

"Yeah I noticed. Come on Naruto, don't be that way." Tenten nudged his shoulder to get him to really think, "I know I don't know what it's like to never have one of my parents around, but I do know what it's like to lose them altogether. Don't put that kind of evil on yourself. When you meet Minato-sama, give him a chance. He's not a bad person."

Everyone kept saying that. Kushina said it, Kakashi said it, Tenten said it. They all swore by the man. Even the Hyuuga Clan seemed to know who he was back when they'd stayed there for a short while and they regarded his strength highly.

But he was literally never around. Naruto had never seen him once outside of a handful of faded pictures, stories from Kushina, and occasional rumors that circulated around the village.

"Just meet him first and give him a fair shake okay?" Tenten requested of him, "For Kaka-, well forget Kakashi." At least for right now after today. Bringing up Kakashi wasn't going to motivate him to do anything, "Do it for yourself, and for your mom. For me too."

Well Kushina always did want Naruto to keep Minato in a positive frame of light, but Tenten? "Why for you?"

"Because you're my friend." The weapon-toting young girl said, elbowing Naruto in the arm, "And I don't want to see my friend hate his dad before he ever even gets to know him."

"I don't hate him. I can't hate someone I've never met." That didn't mean Minato didn't piss him off though, "I'm still gonna punch him in the throat when I see him though. I'm gonna move in all teary-eyed, arms open like I'm going for a hug and WHAP!" Naruto emphasized by throwing out a jab, "Right in the throat, one good time, 'ttebayo!"

It was clear that he'd pondered how he would handle the scenario of his first meeting with Minato quite extensively.

Tenten was officially convinced that Naruto was totally unbalanced. Hopefully that made for a good ninja, because on the surface it didn't instill much confidence and she trained with him every day as it was, so he wasn't going to utterly blow her away with some amazing secret that she had yet to be informed about.

That could _never_ happen.

So it was back to lookout duty, until something in particular caught the eye of one of the young shinobi in the midst of their guard work. It got a hold of Naruto's attention and would not let it go, no matter how impractical.

More like someone actually.

Tenten noticed the person as well, or people. They kind of stuck out. A boy and a girl. One clad in all black with odd facepaint, and a noticeably older girl with a very large fan on her back, seemingly observing the bustling town square with some interest as they talked with each other and laughed.

"More Sand Nomads Naruto, and they're pretty young to be by themselves." Tenten said informatively, "They don't look like trouble either, but keep them in sight with the others we found." No response, "…Naruto?" Turning to her side where she'd seen him before, the bun-haired girl did not find her partner sitting next to her any longer, "Where did you go?"

Naruto's eyes never really left the girl with the fan after they had landed upon her. His legs moved themselves in her direction, but as he drew closer he'd realized his folly. In the entire time it had taken for him to walk on over to the girl, he'd failed to formulate a logical and coherent thought for what he was going to say when he got over there.

So there he stood, having walked up to some girl he didn't know who by now had noticed him standing near her vicinity just looking at her.

Because first impressions were everything and all.

"Uh." Came the eloquent first words of ten year-old Uzumaki Naruto, "Hey. My name's Naruto."

Temari had no clue where this brat had come from. He was at least a few years younger than her, and he had just randomly introduced himself to her in quite the awkward manner, "Good for you." She said before sternly putting her hands on her hips, "What do you want?"

"To say hi?"

"Hi there." Temari said with a faux-kind smile before her face turned stern again, "Now go away. I'm not into babysitting. I just finished a mission. I want to relax, and my idea of relaxing isn't humoring some foreign ninja kid."

Man, Sand Nomads were a tough bunch. None of the ones he'd met had been particularly nice today, even a pretty girl like that one. That babysitting remark hit him right in the heart.

But right then, he remembered a lesson driven home deep by his mother that had formed a core trait of his personality. If you had something you needed to get out, you'd better say it and you'd better say it loud and clear. Being quiet and meek never got anything productive done for anyone, and if you were an Uzumaki you'd better learn how to speak up.

"Alright look." Naruto eventually said, a slight growl in his voice from biting back the feeling of how stupid he must have looked actually saying it. After all, it wasn't like she had been taking him seriously beforehand anyway, "I think you might be the prettiest girl I've ever met, I think your fan is awesome, and I want to know your name. So would you stop actin' all stingy and cough it up already?"

Temari just stared down at him, gaping like a fish in the aftermath of perhaps the bluntest statement she'd ever heard any human being give her in her life. And it had come from a kid that was probably no older than her youngest brother. She didn't know what to say off the top of her head in response.

Standing right there with her, Kankuro had been annoyed by Naruto's presence from the start. He hated runts to begin with, and this one had come up to them trying to strike up a lame conversation. Even so, after that, he didn't quite know how to react either.

Eventually though, Kankuro recovered enough to say something first, touching on Naruto's foreign looks, "Where are you from brat?"

"Uzu no Kuni." Naruto informed, confidence slowly building after having thrown her off-balance, "Waaaay east, off of the mainland. Island in the sun."

"Well what are you doing out here in Kaze no Kuni?"

"Looking for someone." Naruto replied earnestly before catching himself and remembering what he'd learned from listening and watching others back home. With that in mind he addressed Temari once more, "But I found you instead."

Girls liked to be seen like they were the center of the universe didn't they? That was what Kushina said when he'd asked why guys in the village seemed to spend months doing nothing all day but wooing women. And sometimes it worked.

Oh wow. People actually said that. Out loud. In public, "What?" Was the flat response came from Temari.

"The heat of our love will burn this world to ashes."

Kankuro couldn't help but sputter, temporarily forgetting how much he wanted to punt the kid out of speaking distance of the two of them. That was the ballsiest thing he'd ever heard anyone say, "D-Do you even know what that means?"

"No." Naruto admitted with a shrug that exhibited just how little he knew of the things he was saying, "I actually got that from one of my mom's weird books. Some guy named Jiraiya wrote it." The guy had to be some kind of genius if he wrote a book his mom was reading.

"Right." Temari said, putting a way too sweet to be safe smile back on her face, "Okay, so here's what's going to happen. I'm going to give you ten seconds to run as far away from me as you can or to convince me not to do what I'm going to do next." With a metallic thud she took the fan from her back and set it down on the hard ground for emphasis, "Then I'm gonna open this, and we're going to see how much you like flying. TEN! NINE!"

The chain of events hadn't taken long at all and roughly around the time Naruto had said something about home, Tenten had found him in the courtyard, "Naruto, what are you doing over here?"

"About to get a scenic trip of the desert through the air." Kankuro said as Temari counted down another number, "She's only counting so that everybody here knows she warned him in advance in case she kills him. And so they can get out of the way."

"What? Why?"

"SEVEN!"

Naruto wasn't particularly afraid of the potential death threat the way that Tenten seemed to be though, instead wondering exactly how this was going to go down, "So you're going to open that, hit me, and you'll hit me hard enough to knock me into the desert?" She didn't look strong enough to manage that with a melee attack, but then again she was carrying that big-ass fan to begin with so she was definitely strong enough to swing it, "How?"

"Wait and see. SIX!"

Tenten yanked the shoulder of Naruto's shirt to get his undivided attention, "What did you say to make this girl mad enough to give you a countdown?" And more importantly, should they have been taking that time to leave?

"I called her cute! That's all!" Naruto assured his friend frantically, not wanting the wrath of two girls on his head instead of one, "I just came over here to say that! I didn't do anything else! …And that angry look on her face is actually _really _pretty." As if she were appropriately beautiful when her claws were bared… even if they were bared at him.

"Five-four-three-two-one, time's up!" Temari hurriedly counted after Naruto's last offhanded comment. With that done, her fan opened up with enough force to blow the dust away from her immediate surroundings, revealing three purple moons on its interior, "Let me show you how much I appreciate your candor."

"…Can-what?"

"I'M GOING TO BLOW YOU AWAY FOR HITTING ON ME JUNIOR!" Was basically the gist of what she was trying to say. Who wanted to hear that from a ten year-old kid? She was thirteen damn it. That wasn't flattering.

"Man, Temari's got a temper." Kankuro remarked to himself from the sidelines. He thought he was going to be the one to grab that brat by his collar and hurl him out of there, "She's a special kind of pissed off today. Walking around in three gigantic circles in the desert all day to finish a seal will do that though."

"Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa." Naruto somehow stopped the proceedings by simply stepping forward and waving his arms, "Hold on. You guys made the seals surrounding this village? I thought a guy named Gaara and his dad made those seals?"

For the moment at least, Temari lowered her fan from the poised-to-swing position she'd had it in before, "We all did. Gaara's our brother." How did this kid know there were seals? They were too big for anyone that wasn't really good at them to know what they were, "Why do you know Gaara?" Temari asked, closing her fan back up.

"Because he almost tried to kill us." Tenten groused, a combination of relieved at not being attacked and somewhat disappointed because a part of her wanted to see what Temari would have done to Naruto, 'Probably something with wind from how that fan opened.'

"Yeah." Naruto said, squinting his eyes in agreement with his partner, "Your little brother's kind of a dick." And just like that Naruto found himself swept off of his feet and yelling as he crashed into a sand dune between two buildings.

With one moon of her fan open for the quick maneuver, Temari had a therapeutic smile on her face after sending Naruto flying. Tenten just stood there and cursed Naruto for the complete lack of tact and judgment present. Someone was going to have to kick that into him, and since Kakashi couldn't seem to care less as long as he knew how to fight it would undoubtedly be up to her.

"You aren't going to fight back for that?" Kankuro asked the slightly older brat in Tenten, "Temari just blew your little brother away."

Tenten sighed and started ticking off things on her fingers, "One, he's not my brother. Two, even though I wanted to say what he said too, I knew better than to say it to your face. And three, I've seen him get hit way harder than that _today_ and get right back up, so all you really did at worst was piss him off."

"Okay, even if Temari did piss him off-." Kankuro got around to saying, "-Who cares? He's just a fucking ki-."

BOOM!

People scattered away from the explosion of sand that came from where Naruto had landed, proving Tenten's point by her reckoning, "See?"

The front of the sand dune had been blown off, with Naruto standing inside of it, holding his hands together in front of his body from the use of his first wind jutsu. He gave his entire body a few good shakes before jogging back over to the others, "Okay, that didn't even hurt and the only reason I'm not gonna kick your ass for that is because-."

"-Because you can't?" Temari finished for Naruto with a smirk. He used wind too. That was interesting. She'd totally turn it against him if he wanted to fight.

Temari _really_ hoped he wanted to fight.

"-Because I'm supposed to be saving my energy to guard the cart forty yards away, because I want to know more about the seal you guys were putting up, and because you're beautiful so you get one of those."

Everybody got one as a matter of fact. Kakashi got one, Tenten got one, those three jerks that attacked the cart when he met Tenten got one, the Uchiha kid from the Hyuuga escape bridge got one. Everybody did.

By now Tenten was starting to get a little miffed though, "You never call me cute or anything like that, but you can say it to her?"

Not that she would have actually felt any differently from Temari if Naruto had indeed pestered her for something like that. He was younger than her and was more trouble than could be considered beneficial to have his attention in that fashion. But not hearing it from him and hearing it directed at another girl, that had blown him into a sand dune as a matter of fact, was indescribably annoying for some reason.

"You're my best friend and my teammate, you can't be cute." Naruto reasoned in what he felt was a logical manner, "You _were_ cute, but now we work together so you can't be cute anymore or it would screw up the dynamic."

That just served to antagonize her further, "What dynamic? We train and spar with each other, beat up bandits that try to rob Teuchi-san, and do a piss-poor job of guarding a cart together. And I say piss-poor because we're right here and we aren't even watching it right now."

"We kind of are actually. It's being handled by top men."

"What top me-?"

"Top. Men."

In other words, clones stashed all over the place. When he made them, Tenten did not know because while paying attention to her surroundings to guard the cart she blocked out anything Naruto was doing that didn't revolve around him speaking to her or pointing out potential persons of interest.

Apparently Naruto was getting better at subtle clone creation. Good for him.

Kankuro could see Temari's ire rising, and while he despised brats, he wasn't keen on being around her after she blew up. Even if she killed the loud yellow-headed one, he'd be the one to really suffer for it later when she remained angry afterwards, "Kid, if I tell you about the seal will you shut the fuck up and go away?"

"We can't go away because we're on a mission that needs us to stay right in this general area, but I can make him shut up." Tenten said, preventing Naruto from saying whatever he was about to that more than likely would have made things worse.

That was good enough for Kankuro, at least for now. And it wasn't like the seal was some big weapon that could be used against them or any other human. It was something that had been spread by one man to the Sand Nomads, fairly recently in an effort to cut down on the fatalities incurred by Shukaku's rampages.

It wasn't a practical seal, it was extremely complex, and it was so situational it could never work under any other circumstances than the one they used it in. There was absolutely no danger in showing it to him.

And if it shut him up, all the better.

Kankuro couldn't form the intricate portion of the seal, so he had to show Naruto a scroll with a diagram of the technique, "Yaju-gata u~Oudo no Fuuin (Beast Warding Seal)." Its design consisted of a thick double-lined circle surrounding the kanji symbols for 'restrain' and dozens of smaller, intricate seal arrays surrounding it, "Here. Look."

And look Naruto did. Extremely closely.

Squinting and reading slowly, Naruto mumbled out words like 'suppress', 'overwhelm', 'trigger', 'biju', and other words. It took a while, but the others all realized that Naruto was translating, "…You can read that?" Tenten asked curiously, noticing the way his eyes danced across the parchment, "It looks like a lot of squiggles to me."

Sometimes with how dumb he acted in regards to most things, most recently evident by his dealing with Temari, it was easy for Tenten to forget that Naruto was fairly talented with sealing knowledge, at least when it came to interpreting them. Most ninjas on the mainland wouldn't know the first thing of how they worked, even if they used the seals themselves.

She wondered if he could teach her? Or maybe even make his own someday?

"Kinda." Naruto said, still staring as if he were trying to make out something else. Compared to this, Neji's juuinjutsu was downright simple to decode, "It's hard to explain. I mean, I can understand some of it, the ones that are by themselves." Benefits of an Uzumaki Clan education, "But most of the marks intersect with other stuff. I can't read those. Someone invented those arrays."

Which meant that someone knew what the hell they were doing when they made this. Reading seals was almost like a language, and just like any language you could create new words using the already established rules of the lexicon or complete nonsensical gibberish.

You knew when you had gibberish because the seal wouldn't work or it completely blew up in your face.

"Nobody can _read_ seals." Temari insisted, clearly ignorant of just what went into the culture of a ninja on the other side of the continent, "Even if you could, how? You aren't even the one that created it to give to the Sand Nomads. You're just a kid."

"I didn't say I could read the whole thing." Naruto said, struggling and failing to read the true meat of the fuuinjutsu in front of him, "I can read a good bit of it, but I'm probably missing the parts that are really important." Like the part that soloed out biju to be affected, "…You said someone else made this and gave this to you guys?"

"Yeah, a few months ago he gave this to every Sand Nomad that he came across. We're supposed to set them up on all sides around a settlement to make sure we cover it." Kankuro explained, "He told us what it was for, how to use it, and he just left. He didn't ask for money, food, water, or anything. I didn't expect a ninja that strong to just give away a jutsu like this for nothing."

Knowledge on the biju aside from how devastating they could be when provoked (or not provoked in Shukaku's case) was slim to come by, especially in Kaze no Kuni. Someone that had developed a sort of means to deal with them was almost entirely unheard of. Until recently, Sand Nomads that came across Shukaku during one of its full moon rampages on a random area had to flee on the spot. At least now those that did not have the means to slow it down otherwise had a chance.

The death toll had been dropping lately all over the country during these monthly attacks for years. Ever since this preventative seal began spreading in popular use.

A small blush and a smile came to Temari's face upon remembering the man in question, "Minato-sama was so strong, even dad acknowledged he was stronger. But he was such a nice person. Most strong ninjas are stone-faced pricks. Not blue-eyed, genius gentlemen."

"Temari, he's like at least 20 years older than you."

"Shut up Kankuro, it's not like that!"

Meanwhile Naruto and Tenten just shared a look between the two of them before deciding to see just how deep this rabbit hole went, "Okay, when you say a few months ago we're talking less than six, right?"

XxX

(Out in the Desert)

This was going to be an interesting full moon sequence. Shukaku was always at its most destructive during these times. It always came out somewhere in the desert to slake its insane bloodlust, and it had a track record of violence unmatched by any biju in the world.

He was going to attract it to this place in the hopes of quite the dog and pony show. Only with more blood, devastated property, and loss of life than the conventional dog and pony show, so it would be much more entertaining.

"Hm. This is going to be an interesting scientific observation." A tall man with white skin, serpentine yellow eyes, long black hair, and a dark violet kimono over black pants and a mesh shirt with bandages as his sash, "Hopefully watching Shukaku yields something that I can use in my newest set of experiments. After all, kukukuku… the shinobi world demands progress."

And as the world demanded progress in regards to its ninja arts, he was there to improve upon them by any means necessary.

He fancied himself, and was touted by others as the most brilliant scientist in the Elemental Nations; inventing new ways to utilize chakra with technology, and discovering the secrets of multiple clans after studying their methods of fighting.

That wasn't where his passion lied though. His obsession was with the collective ninjutsu of the world itself. He reveled in reverse-engineering techniques and learning them himself, as well as creating and modifying his own. He had such a knack for it that he had amassed a fortune with which to conduct his experiments, all by the way of selling the results of his studies, selling techniques and other combat-related knowledge to those willing to pay handsomely.

In a time of constant war and backstabbing, there were ALWAYS those willing to pay handsomely for what a man like him could give them. Senju, Uchiha, Yotsuki, Aburame, all over the continent, if they could contact him they would enlist his science to strengthen their clans against their enemies.

The ultimate death merchant of the Elemental Nations.

Coming upon the deep black marks in the ground that commemorated the signs of a sealing array, the man stuck out an unnaturally long tongue, focusing his chakra in a heated form on the end of it that he dragged over the surface of the sand, breaking the array just slightly. Normally impossible, but with a jutsu such as the Shikoku Fuuin (Finger Carving Seal), created to manually write and disrupt arrays, it was simple.

He enjoyed the chaos of the world. It allowed him the ability to take in the downtrodden and easily malleable, to experiment with them and test his results while using them as his own standing army. It allowed him the freedom to do as he liked. To discover, to unveil the secrets generations past thought to be lost to time and legend.

His name was Orochimaru, and in his unflappable opinion it was his destiny to discover the true meaning behind everything. No matter what it took, no matter how long it took, and if it made him boatloads of money in the process so be it.

Watching things burn before he needed to study them in the aftermath was just a little hobby of his on the side.

"I can't wait to see the destructive power of Shukaku firsthand. It will prove to be… inspiring."

* * *

Jutsu List

Yaju-gata u~Oudo no Fuuin (Beast Warding Seal). A-rank fuuinjutsu, barrier ninjutsu. Close-range, supplementary, defensive. Created with the intent of deterring the biju away from certain areas, this jutsu creates a field within its area that reacts to the unnatural chakra of the mightiest tangible forces in the Elemental Nations. Though it works in differing ways with differing biju, the effect is generally the same. Intense pain and discomfort is inflicted upon those that enter the area, becoming more harmful the closer to the center that the biju travels. Being affected by this jutsu at its strongest point can cause paralysis in the overwhelming creatures, allowing action to be taken against them, even if it is just extra time to flee.

* * *

Major Clan Information

Sand Nomads  
Leader: No Leader

**Population: 2/5  
Military Strength: 1/5  
Economy: 2/5  
Notable Traits: Propensity for wind or earthen-based techniques. Very frugal, pragmatic people. Ruthless in combat. Sun-weathered hair colors are common (bright colored hair is extremely rare), as are worn turbans and other light headwear of some sort to protect from the wind and sun. Constantly mobile lifestyle, no permanent residences. Incredible sense of direction and above-average survival skills are common amongst their people. No organized hierarchy. No actual clan ties. No joint affiliation with one another.  
Area of Operations: Kaze no Kuni.**

* * *

**Alright, we're in the friggin' desert now, and Gaara still controls sand. Kishimoto mind-freaked me back with Gaara's big conversation with his dad (all the Shukaku vs. Karura for sand control crap), so I'm not even going to try and justify why I won't give him the ability.**

** It's important to the next chapter though, so just understand for now that Gaara in this story = future messiah of the desert because of what he has the potential to be one day due to the sand control. He hates Shukaku for personal reasons that a lot of people can probably guess before I even write it into the next chapter, and for his aforementioned messiah of the desert reasons. He's not as crazy as canon Gaara was, but due to expectations put on his shoulders for his abilities, the way he lives, and the general temperament of his family in general he's a hard kid.**

**Now for those of you wondering, no I'm not going to draw out the meeting with Minato for 20 chapters or something absurd like that. Screw that. It's not going to take too much longer to happen. I've got points to get to in this story.**

**Chasing Minato's shadow forever doesn't make for an interesting tale, and besides, waiting that long to do something like that isn't anything to do when you're writing. Maybe in a TV show, but not when you're writing something like this. I just want to get some things set first and get the tone of the alternate universe I'm using set up so that it's easy to understand and follow along to.**

…**Also, I dig character interaction, and I want this Naruto to have experienced some real-deal shit in the cold, cold clan-based world first, because he's still 10. So there's also that. It's not like there's a shortage of characters I can actually use to do it with either.**

**Alright? Cool. Anyway, I hope I dulled your senses for a few minutes, and I'll catch you next time.**

**Kenchi out.**


	7. Night of the Living Biju

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. Damn Hiraishin is a broken-ass jutsu. That is all.

**Chapter 7: Night of the Living Biju**

* * *

Contrary to how it appeared on the surface, Hatake Kakashi wasn't as absent-minded and aloof as his everyday demeanor would suggest to people. Kakashi was an extremely focused and diligent man, and did everything that he did for a reason, even if he constantly made dealing even the most serious of situations seem like he was just humoring a passing fancy.

It was just that a long time ago, Kakashi stopped seeing the point in walking around all serious, all gloom and doom. It was the way most ninjas were expected to carry themselves, and for a long time it had been how he had as well, but he eventually figured that if being that way wasn't going to keep the copious amounts of enemies you've built over the last twenty years from coming at your throat to do a victory dance over your corpse, what was the point of being dead serious all the time?

He had learned the hard way to stop and smell the roses so to speak; to take joy in some of the simpler things in life.

Things such as enjoying a full-course meal in seconds behind people's backs and make them wonder how you ate with the mask on, things such as watching the two kids under your guardianship try and do their best to inflict a mortal wound on you so that you can taunt and patronize them when they can't, and things such as wondering if ten years is too wide of a number between your age and that of the fifteen going on sixteen year-old daughter of your client to try your luck with.

Yeah, simple things like that.

Still, that did not mean that he didn't know how to get down to business. Kakashi was still one of the most dangerous men on the continent and had earned it the hard way; by pouring hundreds of thousands of hours into his craft, by being diligent and attentive to the world around him, and by killing a whole lot of people that tried to kill him.

This was why he got respect even from serious people like Kintetsu, from powerful people like Hyuuga Hiashi, and why he was the bane of the Uchiha Clan. Well, for that last one, the reason was actually because of what sat in his eye socket, and the blame for that could come from another, but he'd claim it full-bore just to keep from besmirching the memory of the only woman he'd ever come close to falling for.

But to the point, he got respect for the career he'd had, the things that people knew of him doing, and the ability that many were well aware that he possessed, "So to the east you say?" Kakashi said, heading back to the nearby village with Kintetsu before the sun went down, "That's funny. And by funny, I mean annoying."

"I'm certain it is," Kintetsu said to the facemask-clad shinobi as the wandered over the sandy lone road leading to town, "Namikaze-san truly was earnest in his endeavor to try and bring the Sand Nomads together. With our lack of widespread clan hostility he felt it was worth a try, and it's a shame how close it came to having something come of it for all of the work he did."

"Nothing happened?"

"As he tried to bring talks and explain his views on things he had to retrieve more and more travelling parties to listen," Kintetsu explained, "It's nearly impossible to keep our people in one place for too long, and as he tried to bring more and more of us to a town to meet, he took too much time in doing so. Many of us drifted away."

Kintetsu remained until the end along with his children to hear the man out, but when Minato realized that his bid to get an ear to listen to him was a lost cause for now he simply provided the protective jutsu that he'd promised those that would listen and bid them farewell.

He was a remarkable human being, Kintetsu could admit that, and it was for more than his seal that had already been proven to work in other full moon scenarios to ward Shukaku away from certain areas. If Minato hadn't been, there would have been no way for him to amass as many Kaze no Kuni ninjas as he had managed to.

More than two thousand at one time. Personally, Kintetsu had never seen so many Sand Nomads in one place at a time for any reason. For two weeks no one fought, no one died, and it was admittedly pleasant. But eventually everyone had to get back to business as usual and they all wandered off into the desert once more to find where they could be needed. Down by the missed opportunity, Minato soon picked himself up and endeavored to try again later.

Whether he knew it or not, he'd opened up a new business venture for those that he'd given the seal design to. The job of Shukaku-proofing villages for the full moon attacks on random settlements.

"Namikaze-san understands the region well. In order to keep from stepping on anyone's toes he never took missions in the middle of the country. It was always border work. That's why I'm saying that you can find him to the west. His attempt to initiate talks of banding together wasn't that long ago." Kintetsu said.

Well that was good news. If Minato had been living off of his savings while getting things together in the desert he had probably run low enough that he had to do substantial work to build his funds back up. If it really wasn't that long ago they had a legitimate chance to reach him very soon.

Kakashi was thankful to hear of that to say the least, "Then I know where we're heading next. First thing in the morning we'll be going back east. And I'm still very upset that we basically went past where we were supposed to go. That's very annoying to find out."

Kintetsu simply shrugged, not really responding to that remark, but instead bringing up something else, "That boy with you looks just like Namikaze-san I must say. He would be his progeny I assume?"

"Naruto is Minato-sama's only son, yes. Estranged for various reasons, but he's his legitimate son." Kakashi assured his desert-dwelling acquaintance, "It's extremely important that we find him. He may be the only person in the world outside of Naruto's home country that can help him."

"How so?"

"Let's just say that the seal that he gave you to ward away biju is a large reason why I know his mother did the right thing in asking me to bring Naruto to him."

XxX

(With Naruto – Inside of the Village)

After Naruto had let slip that he was Minato's son to Temari and Kankuro when the topic somehow came up, the two young Sand Nomads found themselves somewhat fallen into tow with Naruto and Tenten as they continued to observe the ramen cart during business hours. They were also fed for free for being friends of the two foreigners, but Ayame bid Temari a sharp glare for her earlier treatment of Naruto that she had seen.

Temari simply found it difficult to believe that a person as handsome and amazing as Namikaze Minato was related to someone like Naruto. He was extremely underwhelming to say the least, and from her point of view he held none of his apparent father's magnetism.

And he kept staring at her with a damn smile on his face! He wasn't even trying to hide that he was looking her way!

"Runt," Temari said, making sure that Naruto was paying full attention to her, "What did I say already about staring at me?"

Sitting across from the small setup of rocks that the kids were using as seats, Naruto blinked and frowned before smiling once more, "Oh, I was staring? Sorry." Temari just rolled her eyes as Naruto turned his attention back to the seal he'd been studying for quite some time, "So dad made this? Wow. He really must be good."

He'd heard that the man was powerful, but he couldn't imagine since he'd never seen him.

"These things work like gangbusters," Kankuro commented with a grin, "During the Sand Nomad summit where he met us he actually proved they worked by finding Shukaku's trail and setting them around him to trap him for the whole full moon."

"I didn't think a person could ever move that fast to scrawl out a big, complicated seal like that, while Shukaku was trying to kill him, three times," Temari said with a light blush on her face, "It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen. And then he did something else to warp Shukaku away altogether. I think it was the only full moon I've ever heard of where no one died."

Tenten looked over at her blond teammate to see his reaction to hearing about his father from others, but she could see that Naruto was trying not to listen. She observed him closely though, and could tell that he couldn't help but keep his ears open. The wheels turning inside of his head might as well have been on the outside from how easy it was to see that he was thinking about Minato.

Deciding to add her bit to the conversation as well, Tenten spoke up as well, "I never saw any of Minato-sama's bigger jutsu, but he told me about some of them. He was perfect at everything he tried to teach me though. It was so weird, and he said that he wasn't even a specialist with any ninja tools except his weird kunai."

"Well that's cool," Naruto said with a big wide grin, "Everybody here's met my dad… 'cept me."

Kankuro raised an eyebrow at the declaration. There was a bitter undertone to it that wasn't necessarily obvious in the tone of Naruto's usually energetic voice, "Y-You've never met him?" He asked the younger boy, 'Jeez, he looks just like him now that I know about the connection. That's really got to suck.'

Naruto just shook his head and looked down before kicking at the sand. Tenten's thought to try and turn Naruto onto feeling stronger about his father had backfired, thus thoroughly dejecting her. It was just that, she missed her own parents every day, she knew how good of a man Minato was, and she knew that the experience of knowing his parents would be something that would resonate with Naruto greatly.

Still, she was just eleven years old, so her thoughts on how to handle such things weren't as refined as they needed to be for such a sensitive subject.

The party fell into something of a silence until a fifth reached them, letting his presence be known by his distinct, somewhat rasped voice, "Kankuro, Temari."

"Gaara," Temari said in greeting of her youngest brother, "You've been gone all evening. You even missed dinner," She gestured to the empty bowls of ramen that had once been filled with food for the lot of them.

Gaara simply shook his head and chose to stand instead of sit like his siblings, "I ate after I was through training. Where is our father?" Kankuro and Temari just looked at each other, shrugging in unison. They didn't know where the patriarch of their little brood was. They hadn't seen him since they'd broken off to do their part to set the seals, "…He's more than likely still with the man that brought these two here."

"We'll go find him," Kankuro said, getting up and moving past Gaara with Temari. He was about to give him a pat on the shoulder, but noticed Gaara give him a look before he could. He promptly thought better of the physical contact and moved along, "Just relax for a bit."

And they left Gaara alone, with two people that he'd tried to kill a handful of hours ago. This didn't seem to bother him in the slightest, as he took his seat on one of the rocks and simply sat down, shutting his eyes as if he were blocking everything else out.

Naruto and Tenten looked at each other before looking at the odd redhead. He was stronger than they were, this much had already been proven, so if he still had a bone to pick that might have presented a problem, "So…" Naruto ventured to say first, "…Full moon equals a biju attack huh?"

"More or less," Gaara said, "One can never tell where Shukaku will turn up at full moons. But it is almost always assured that people will die when he does. You're lucky that you made it to a town by nightfall. Until the sun rises in the morning, no one is guaranteed to be safe."

Hearing about another biju had Naruto rest his hand on his stomach for a moment, something that went unnoticed by Gaara and Tenten, "So Shukaku just kills people? Why?" Kurama had just been chilling in a ravine when Naruto had found him, and he didn't seem to want to cause any havoc in particular… unless they upset him, or were directly in the path of his next footstep, or he wanted a snack.

Then again, he wasn't familiar with the behavior of a tailed beast. He didn't know anyone that actually was.

"No one knows why," Gaara replied, "This is just the way that it has been for centuries," It wasn't like the history of Sand Nomads was some big secret. It was just common knowledge. General information on them simply made their interactions with others from abroad less painful, so as long as it wasn't something that was meant to be a close secret telling people about them helped them in the long term, "Shukaku is a terror. A force of nature."

"So why live in the desert then?" Tenten asked, kicking her legs off of the rock she had chosen to sit on. She knew that if there was a biju that went on roaming killing sprees monthly that no one could anticipate she wouldn't choose to stay anywhere near that particular threat, "I mean, if that's not too crazy to ask."

It wasn't a crazy question. Gaara himself asked that question, as did his brother and sister, especially after Shukaku… did what he did to break apart their family, "Depending on which family you speak to the story could vary. It has been passed down amongst Sand Nomads for years and years when children would ask that question. It comes all the way from back during the last days of the Rikudou Sennin."

Tenten's eyes lit up when she realized that they were about to get a Sage of Six Paths story. Those tales were so extremely rare for someone like her to hear, she couldn't help but listen. It was a once in a lifetime chance for many ninjas, especially a clanless girl like her, and added onto her love of being privy to select information she was hooked before hearing another word.

The only people that ever heard anything like that about him were those connected to old clans that had ties that went that far back. Clans like the Senju or Uchiha. They treated anything about the Rikudou Sennin and their clans like state secrets, thus no one outside of those clans were privy to the legends that involved him.

She expected Naruto to be just as excited as her, but the dullard look on his face told her otherwise, "Naruto, we're about to hear a Sage story. You aren't excited?"

"Uh… yes?" Luckily for him, Tenten was too eager to listen to Gaara to know that Naruto really didn't care for whatever reason. History had never been his favorite thing. Some guy did something somewhere else a long, long time ago. It was just names he didn't know to faces he couldn't picture, in places that he would (probably) never see.

And most of them were probably untrue to begin with. Seriously, some of the stories he'd heard couldn't possibly be true. People couldn't possibly do everything that he'd heard in some word-of-mouth tales, since no one in ninja society ever really wrote their stories down. Keeping secrets and all that.

It was important to Tenten though, and that meant that as a good friend it should have been important to him because of that, even though it would probably be boring.

With a nod, Gaara resumed speaking, "Years before, he had split the primordial monster known as the Juubi into nine entities that we today recognize as the biju that spread themselves across the Elemental Nations. On his death bed, the Rikudou Sennin reached out to the Sand Nomad people and requested of them one thing. To take care of Shukaku for him, to find a way to handle the threat that Shukaku posed to the people of the desert."

"Wow…" Tenten listened, paying rapt attention with wide brown eyes. That was one of the coolest descended purposes for a culture she had ever heard. Then again, she didn't know exactly why the clans of the world lived the way they did. Few people outside of them were aware of why.

"He knew of his destructive power," Gaara continued to say, "And that was why he requested the ninjas of this land that he'd passed down his teachings, to defend this land against Shukaku, and struggle against him to one day keep Kaze no Kuni safe. I believe what my father tells me that he believes; that I have within me the potential to be the person capable of this. It's the reason why I exist. It's why I believe my mother sacrificed herself to ensure that my siblings and I survived the full moon attack years ago that took her life."

Today, even as young as he had been at the time he'd lost her, Gaara could remember the last words his mother said to him, _"Temari, Kankuro, Gaara… don't be afraid. As long as you're alive, just remember, there's nothing I won't protect you from. Ever. I promise."_

Loosening a tight fist into a loose hand, Gaara moved it around to bring up sand from all over the area around him. Now that it wasn't being directed at them, Naruto and Tenten actually found it quite amazing that he could control such an abundant resource with his chakra.

With a flick of his fingers he sent it raining down all over the night-cloaked, moonlit village, "The woman that brought me into this world sacrificed her life to ensure my survival, because she believed in me as well. Shukaku is the lord of the desert? Well in that case I will use the power I was gifted with and be the master of the desert's sands. To destroy Shukaku, and if he truly is a force of nature I'll do the same every time he reappears."

Gaining the power needed to properly take on a biju. That was a tall order to demand of one's self.

At that point, a growling yawn emanated from inside of Naruto's head. Kurama, **"Yeah, there's some serious holes in that sand boy's story about Shukaku and Old Man Sage you know."**

'What?' Naruto mentally asked his massive vulpine tenant. As Gaara continued explaining his version of the Shukaku legend to Tenten who was still listening full-bore, Naruto paid full attention to Kurama, 'You mean you know?'

"**Yeah. When the Sage said something about taking care of Shukaku for him, he probably literally meant it as 'take care of Shukaku'. Not to find a way to kill him or anything like that,"** Naruto could almost see Kurama lying down behind the bars of the cage in his head, tails swishing around, **"All of us biju had our own quirks about us, and whereas I was the giant supremely powerful, sexy beast that I am, Shukaku was the runt. The baby of the family. Little One-Tail."**

'You're kidding.'

"**I never kid about the biju,"** Kurama asserted. This was his family he spoke of. While they were the most dysfunctional family in the history of existence by his standards, they were still his relatives, **"Out of the nine of us, the Sage babied him the most because he was the weakest. He was only really effective when he had enough sand around him to throw his weight around, so naturally this caught him some beatdowns from some of us… *cough* me."**

'I'm having trouble picturing you and the other biju being like that,' Naruto just couldn't see a fox the size of several village blocks and whatever else the other biju looked like growing up in such a… conventional manner.

"**What? I was an adorable tyke!"** Kurama bellowed and cackled in return, **"Whereas Shukaku had to keep being told by the Sage that he really was special, as if being a tanuki the size of a four-story building at the time wasn't enough to tell him that. He'd always tell him that the desert was where he really shined. And when the Sage was dying Shukaku took it the worst of all and he ran off straight to this country. Didn't even have it in him to see the old man go. So that was why the Sage said that."**

'That still doesn't explain much about why they think they need to fight against Shukaku.'

"**Oh. Well it's because plainly put, Shukaku's a bitch."**

Well that was certainly blunt, even by Kurama's standards, 'What?'

"**Yeah, out of the nine of us, he's clearly the one that doesn't understand that razing desert towns to the ground isn't really anything worth talking about. We can all do that."** He could feel the equivalent of Shukaku shrugging inside of him, **"He always had an inferiority complex, and the asskickings he got when he tried to swell up to the biju like me and Gyuki never helped. When the Sage died he lost his biggest supporter that he was tough, so he went to the desert to throw a temper-tantrum… that's lasted for a few hundred years now. When they first confronted him he probably went to town on them and started this whole thing. Total bully."**

'I don't want to hear you call anybody a bully if you bullied Shukaku when you were all little!' Naruto thought aloud, eye twitching at the hypocrisy of the statement, 'That's so messed up!'

"**I am **_**not**_** a bully! He kept coming at us trying to prove something!"** The affronted Kurama replied, **"I have self-respect! Unlike him, I don't massacre weak-ass humans by the townful unless they're asking for it! At least when I choose to take something on it's usually something that's got a chance of putting up a fight!"** He then sniffed haughtily, **"That's the only way it's any fun. The rest of the time I'm sleeping."**

Even so, to hear all of that, that the foundation of the Sand Nomad belief system was based off of a misunderstanding from centuries past, it was pretty heavy stuff. And it wasn't like Kurama was lying. Kurama had yet to lie about anything to Naruto, and even if he had done so before, what would have been the point of lying about this?

How could something like that happen? How many other incidents similar to this were there all over the Elemental Nations? How many other clans and organizations based on some semblance of the Sage of Six Paths began their path through history based on a mistake?

"**What else do you expect?"** Kurama said, sensing the tone of Naruto's creeping thoughts, **"Here's the thing that you human just don't seem to be able to wrap your heads around. For all of the crap about him that you humans keep dishing around, he was still just one of you; a human. He always tried to stress that. He was a human. Not a god given a mortal shell to bestow the gift of ninjutsu unto the world or whatever other crap humans would come up with. He had his share of idiot moments, just like everyone else. His sons for instance, third generation chakra users… real pieces of work."**

He was a child that was tired of all of the fear and destruction that the Juubi brought forth, that was tired of the constant warfare between people that lived in his era. He grew up taught to be something of a warrior monk in a troubled time, who just so happened to have gotten a potent genetic mutation that allowed him to discover the hidden energy within all living things.

This energy that allowed him to do anything he wanted as long as he had the chakra, the strength of body, the willpower, and the knowledge of how to do it. He spent the bulk of his teenage and adult life working to do just that, but the power never changed the fact that he was just a man and he could fall prey to the same pitfalls as any other.

By the time he had developed his power enough to face the Juubi, he had become the most powerful man that had ever lived, but for the age he came up in, that really wasn't saying much. At the time, he was the only person that could use chakra, and it remained that way for years until _after_ he'd subdued the primordial monster.

Kurama saw much of this firsthand after being created, even when it was at the tail end of the Sage's life. At the time, mankind was just beginning to learn the first thing about chakra, **"Can you just imagine how weak the humans of this world were before they learned of chakra in comparison to today? I don't have to, because I've seen it. They were pathetic, even by common human standards. Far lower than your species are now."**

That was a scary thought.

That was an unimaginable thought in the modern scheme of things.

Not only was the Rikudou Sennin the strongest man in existence, he was the strongest man in existence at a time when people had no idea what chakra was, let alone that it was the point of his power or that every human on the planet had the potential to perform similar feats.

"**Of course the man was like a god to them. It was because he was just **_**that**_** stupidly powerful and they couldn't even begin to grasp the first step of it," **Kurama explained, **"He controlled the elements of the environment itself, mastered the five that became the building blocks of your culture, became one with nature itself, and harnessed it as a weapon to trap the ultimate being of power that the world had ever seen."**

From that point forward, nothing the Rikudou Sennin could have ever said would have changed the minds of the people that wished to learn of him. Even when he began teaching others of the secrets of chakra that lay untapped within every human body, no one could ever reach him. Even with all of the teaching he could possibly give. It was simply impossible for anyone to learn _everything_.

When you pass things like fighting techniques down, no one will ever learn anything perfectly. There are things that people are good at and things that people are less than up to par at. It's human nature. Even if someone did learn perfectly, there will always be slight deviations to differentiate one person's version of something from another's, like a signature.

Thus began the dilution of the purest form of the Sage's arts, which slowly gave birth to the multiple focuses and disciplines of the Shinobi Sect that descended into the clans of today after his death. It also gave way to innovation, but nothing was ever as pure as the Sage's method of the ninja arts.

But with all of that power and influence, as the greatest man that had ever lived, his word was bond, and what he said wound up being taken as deeper and more profound than he really meant some of his comments to be. Even something as simple as 'take care of Shukaku' wound up binding an entire culture to the deserts of Kaze no Kuni to live up to the 'request' of Sage of Six Paths.

His actions, his words, his image, all of these things mattered. Like rocks being thrown into a body of water, it resonated, whether it was a random action that could be compared to the smallest pebble, or a comment that was taken as the size of the largest boulder. People argued, disagreed over his intentions and his true meaning behind things. They fought. They died and killed because of what they believed the man to have represented.

That was how powerful he was.

"**Whether he had power from birth or not, in a way he was just like you or any other person, only as he got older he got fed up with the world being the way it was and he gained enough strength of person to do something about it,"** Kurama said, bringing his thought to a close, **"He was the only**** person that did _anything_ about it. And you humans just love to follow the leader."**

Give a person enough strength and character or charisma, and they would attract armies of followers. The problems truly didn't start until this leader in particular died. Even when he left an heir to continue his will, that action wound up fracturing everything and bringing the Elemental Nations back into a state of constant combat.

Naruto was ten years old.

This was too much for an adult to take in all at once, to realize that the entire reason that thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people, lived their lives fighting, bleeding, killing, and dying believing that they were interpreting the message of the Sage of Six Paths, or that they were the truest example of the man's teachings… it was enough to make you sick.

Imagine being a child and being told all of these things by a creature old enough to know. And he could never tell anyone in the hopes to try and change anything. Not now at least. Not for a long time, because as he was, they would never believe a word he said.

…Because he was ten years old.

Realizing that he'd gone far away from his point, Kurama caught himself and embarrassedly stopped right there, **"Ah, Naruto, you should really let me know when I begin to ramble like that… talking about the old times."** He seemed to refer to them, and to the Sage of Six Paths, so fondly though, **"Anyway, the point I started to try and make is that Shukaku is a dick, and if he **_**ever**_** comes around and realizes that I'm inside of you… well you know how humans will watch a line of ants and then they'll see a big fat one in particular?"**

'…Yeah?'

"**In the scenario of Shukaku ever coming across you and realizing that you're my jinchuuriki, consider yourself the big fat ant. Squish."**

Without another word, Naruto got up and seemed to aimlessly ghost his way away from the sitting area as Gaara continued to regale Tenten with the legends of his people. He needed to-, well he didn't know what he needed to do. He just didn't know.

The little blond soon found his way into the closed down ramen cart, his inner conversation taking long enough that they had put up shop for the night. Ayame sat at the server's counter behind the shut window, doing her schoolwork until she noticed Naruto sit at another stool and set his head down in his arms.

Frowning at the lost look on his face, she shut her textbook and paid him attention, "Naruto-chan, what's wrong? Come on. I'm all ears." She assured him with a lovely smile.

Naruto just shook his head in return, "It's… I don't know. I wouldn't even know where to start or where to begin. Or if it's true… or if anyone would even believe me when I said it."

Why would they? He was just a kid. He knew that much. It was the way things had always been, even back with the Uzumaki Clan. No one listened to him. Because of his father, he held even less sway than he would have as a normal child of the clan. He was less than zero to them. His word meant nothing unless Kushina had backed him due to her reputation, and she wasn't there with him.

She'd always had the answers it seemed. His mother. No matter how big things seemed, nothing ever appeared to be too big for Uzumaki Kushina to handle. She was larger than life to him. She could do anything. She was _mom_. She was his mother, and she was better than all of yours combined. Believe it.

He wanted to talk to her. To tell her everything he'd heard tonight from Kurama. She would know. She always knew. Only now, Naruto wasn't so sure about that. If it was something that he wasn't sure his mom was enough for, how could he be big enough to have that kind of information. Inside of his body potentially rested all of the secrets of a bygone age, and he was unfit to carry them.

Ayame sighed and stood, gently pulling Naruto off of his seat into her arms before holding him close to her. He stiffened but soon relaxed, allowing her to let them sink down underneath the counter where they remained, "Naruto-chan…" Ayame said, "I know I'm not like you. I'm just the daughter of a traveling chef. You're a ninja, and I know that you're meant to do big things like fight battles and protect people and all of the other things that you lot do. But do you want to know why I treat you and Tenten the way I do?"

Naruto just shook his head from where he was leaning into her chest. He felt so comfortable there. It was so odd.

"It's because someone has to," The teenage girl told him, tapping him on the nose, "You're a kid, and I know that being a kid doesn't matter when you're a ninja, you have to fight regardless, but you are what you are. If no one treats you like a child while you are one… I don't want to think about what you'll turn into."

She saw Kakashi every day, and knew that he'd been subjected to the life, fighting like a grown man since he was less than six years old by his count. What he was today was a shell of a man, and he didn't even try to hide it because even he was aware that there was no way he could. When he introduced himself to Naruto, and subsequently to others later, he gave those vague answers about himself. He answered that way, not to be mysterious, but because he legitimately didn't have an answer for them.

That was what happened to children subjected to this lifestyle. It took from them and took from them until nothing was left but the pure nature of the shinobi. The human weapon. The only thing that mattered to them was simply moving along to the next mission, the next fight. No future, no real goal, just carnage for the sake of it.

To think of Naruto or Tenten becoming that way, it made her sick. Almost as sick as thinking of them dying at their ages on the battlefield.

"No one expects you to be able to solve everyone's problems just because you're a ninja Naruto-chan," Ayame said, setting her cheek on the top of his spiky-haired crown, "There's things that you don't know, that you can't answer, or whatever, the same as any other kid. I won't tell you not to do what you have to as a shinobi, but I just want you to make me one promise. Can you do that for me? Can you make your big sister a promise?"

"Y-Yeah. Anything you want," Naruto said, squirming in her grasp a bit, "What is it?"

"If the day ever comes that you or Tenten can't tell yourselves what you fight for and mean it, I want you to stop."

Because if the day ever came where this occurred, they would be like Kakashi. They would be empty. And that would be the sum of all of her fears for them.

Ayame knew full well that as nothing more than a client, no, the daughter of a client, they wouldn't be around for too much longer. But even if the impact she had on them was small, if it kept them whole mentally somewhere down the line it was worth it.

Somewhere after the little talk, the two of them drifted off, only to be reawakened by a shaking that caused the cart to rumble.

Naruto awakened with a start, rolling from underneath the counter and out of Ayame's arms, motioning for her to stay there. Another rumble and he went back outside of the door to see what was happening.

Ayame knew that it wasn't an earthquake. It wasn't a sustained enough vibration of the ground to be one. It seemed more like… footsteps. Really big footsteps, "What's going on?" She asked as Naruto helped her out of the cart and shut it up.

"I dunno, but I don't think it's in the village," Naruto admitted upon seeing the present Sand Nomads standing on the rooftops looking in a certain direction, letting her lock the cart up before shooing her off, "Go find your dad and hide with him would you?"

Not needing to be told twice, the civilian girl ran off to do just that, figuring that her father had gone to book them a place to stay at an inn instead of inside of the cart while they were in town. Meanwhile Naruto took to the roofs to join the Sand Nomads and find Tenten, who stood with Gaara, Temari, and Kankuro.

Everyone stared out at the vast desert before them and saw the moonlit form of a monstrous sand-colored tanuki stomping their way. Its blue vein-like markings were on prominent display in the well lit night, illustrating that if there had been any doubt before, this was Shukaku.

"That's... not possible," Temari said, shaking her head at the sight, "We set the seals. We locked them all in. All of them. They all glowed when we were done." The seals were idiot-proof. If you did them right you'd know it. If you screwed them up you'd know it. There was no maybe about it.

Kankuro let out a humorless laugh and knocked into Naruto with his elbow, "You guys picked a hell of a time to come here."

With a gulp, Tenten looked between her new acquaintances and realized that the entire Sand Nomad population that had been in the area numbered past two hundred. Someone had to have something that they could do, right? There had to be someone, "What do we do then? Is there something that can stop him?"

No one had any answer for the girl.

"…Run." One of the ninjas said, almost in a whisper as he backed away to the rear end of the building he was standing on, "Run! Shukaku'll kill us all! You all know that!" Without wasting another moment to play the pragmatic voice, he jumped down and took off in the exact opposite direction to try and salvage his existence by fleeing.

Staring down the sight of the incoming biju, remembering everything that Kurama had said earlier, and remembering how much power Naruto had felt from Kurama for the short duration that he had when the masked man had attacked them, Naruto felt his knees shake.

This was too big for him. This was definitely too big for him. He could feel others moving away to follow the lead of the first man, choosing to run away to try and outpace the biju's pending wrath.

Gaara merely scoffed at the inaction and the cowardice however, "Go on and run then," He said, in his low, gravelly way of speaking, "Everyone here knows that from the moment we saw Shukaku, outrunning him was no longer an option. If that's the case, I guess my facing him will have to come early then."

"You're still too eager to do your task Gaara."

In a swirl of golden powder, Kintetsu appeared alongside Kakashi. The stern-faced shinobi look at his redheaded son with a serious countenance. Gaara returned it just as severely, not willing to back down this time against his father. Not when it came to this.

What was he going to do, run? Run again? Run the way his mother told him to back when he was powerless?

"I'm going out there father," Gaara said resolutely, "Even if I have to do so alone." Even if he didn't have a chance of winning or even surviving.

"Arrogant boy," Kintetsu said as he turned to look out at Shukaku, "Whoever said that you would be going out there alone?" That got a surprised widening of the eyes from Gaara, who had always told him that it wasn't time, that he wasn't ready to face Shukaku despite the fact that it was his duty to use his sand control to overcome him, "If I take you with me, you will listen you every order I give you. Is that understood?"

"Yes father."

"Then let's go. Temari, Kankuro, stay safe."

Moving directly next to his father, Gaara disappeared with him in a golden Shunshin before Temari or Kankuro could move to argue or question the course of action being taken. They were about to fight against that monster? How many people had Shukaku killed over the years? What could they do to defeat him?

And yet they both headed off with the kind of sense of duty that could only be seen in the hardest of people. Temari's hands shook at the thought of her father and youngest brother heading off to a battle that they couldn't possibly survive.

Kakashi moved to his young charges and rested hands on their shoulders, bringing him to find that Naruto was shaking, 'Poor kid. He's terrified,' He thought to himself, 'I can't blame him. This isn't the sort of thing that anyone could be prepared to deal with.'

His shaking only increased when he felt more and more people try to drift away, staying out of sight to try and keep others from seeing their fear in the face of a biju's wrath.

"So that's it huh? Everybody's just gonna run away and scatter, and hope that after Shukaku flattens this village he doesn't go after them in the desert before the sun comes up?" Naruto said, loud enough for everybody else to hear quite clearly, "What about everybody else here then? When every ninja here takes off, WHAT HAPPENS TO THEM!?"

Everybody knew what would happen to them. They would die. There was no other fate for the civilians. No one said it, but everyone knew it.

Naruto started pacing around in an angry circle as he kept talking, not caring if he sounded insane or if he offended anyone that heard him, "I am just a kid, and there's lots of stuff I don't know and might not ever know, just like Ayame-neechan said, but I'm a ninja too! I can actually protect myself! Not very much all by myself against that thing, but more than a regular person can! The people here can't do anything! They don't have a chance! Even if they ran away now! Even if _we_ all ran away, Shukaku would kill most of us anyway!"

It was true. With how Shukaku could travel underneath the sand, he could still catch ninja runners by the droves and move on to the rest. The nastiest game of chase ever comprised on the planet. The stories of such events were common in Kaze no Kuni history. Naruto had managed to glean that much from barely listening in.

"If that thing's gonna kill me ANYWAY-!" Naruto shouted, pointing directly at the approaching Shukaku, "-I'm not gonna let it get me with my back turned running away! All of us actually have some power, so why don't we use it for the people that don't?"

The silence that dragged on after the fact just elicited a scowl from Naruto as he jumped down onto the sand and took off running after Gaara and Kintetsu who were long gone by that time. The sound of his footsteps sifting rapidly through the sand faded as he got farther and farther away.

Tenten's eyes moved between Kakashi and the departing Naruto until finally she hopped down as well and went after him, "Naruto! Don't go and do stupid things all by yourself!" As she pursued him, she found that she was flanked on both sides by Temari and Kankuro, "Wait, you guys too?"

"Heh, well I know I usually hate brats like your friend, but I think I'm starting to like that kid. Our family's out there," Kankuro said, rubbing underneath his nose with his index finger with a grin, "We already lost our mom in one of these attacks before. If it happens again, at least this time we'll all be together you know?"

Temari's right hand held tightly to the metal fan strapped to her back as some measure of security, her eyes locked straight ahead on the fate that awaited them once they got far enough away from the village, "I'm not letting my baby brother fight for his life all by himself. Even if he is creepy and intense sometimes, he's still our Gaara."

Kankuro gritted his teeth as he found it hard to close the distance on Naruto, "Damn it! Why is this runt so fast?"

XxX

(Meanwhile – Outside of the Village)

Shukaku's massive footsteps with his comparatively stubby legs vibrated the ground as he hummed to himself. There was plenty of reason to be upbeat. It was a full moon, he was out and about on his turf, and somehow he'd been summoned to surface on that place.

What attracted him to that area in particular, he didn't know, but hey! There was a town there! Fresh targets, all for him! So it worked out.

There was a pep in his step and a lift in his tone as he ambled his way to his awaiting victims.

His progress was inexplicably halted when sand captured one of his legs and held them in place with pressure that would have crushed anything else. But since his body was made of sand, this was just extremely annoying, **"What the hell?"** Who could possibly control sand itself, other than him of course?

As he looked down and pondered what was going on, a large wave of golden powder erupted from underneath the surface of the sand and blasted off of Shukaku's face and upper body. He'd been hit with something like that before. It wasn't as strong last time, or as abundant if he remembered correctly though. It was quite annoying though, as with his leg trapped it came close to knocking him off balance.

Kintetsu held his hands up, directing his Gold Dust to assault Shukaku to enact his plan to overcome the biju, "Gaara," He called out to his nearby son who was struggling immensely just to keep hold of one of Shukaku's legs for the first leg of the plan, "How are you doing?"

"Sand Binding Coffin… isn't strong enough to even hold his leg." Gaara admitted through his strain, "As it is, Sand Waterfall Funeral won't have enough pressure to do anything to injure his leg."

It was to be expected. Gaara was trying to overpower a chakra-empowered sand monster with his own chakra-empowered sand. He hadn't come into this believing that Gaara was powerful enough to overwhelm Shukaku to any degree. He knew that when it came to the lion's share of the plan, it was up to him to make sure it happened.

With a grunt of effort he directed the full wrath of his Gold Dust at Shukaku's face. He sputtered and spat as copious amounts of the billowing powder went into his mouth and down his throat.

Holding his hands/claws up to block the flow somewhat, Shukaku kicked his free leg at the father and son duo, **"Hey, quit it!"** The movement of his leg forced a huge tidal wave of sand up in their direction, **"Killing only two humans isn't worth the effort when there's a whole village right in front of me!"**

It was as if the entire desert tossed and rolled like the ocean in a tropical storm in response to the mere movement of Shukaku's foot. The ground wasn't safe to stand on, thus Kintetsu diverted a significant portion of his Gold Dust to creating a midair platform for himself and Gaara to stand on safely, 'No new tricks since the last time. That's good.'

Things were still more dangerous than anyone could ever understand without actually being there, but as long as he knew what the danger was he could be somewhat ready for it. The sand lifted around them and began to collapse inward, letting Kintetsu know that it was time to move.

"Gaara." He said to make sure his son was prepared for what was to come.

A stiff nod came from Gaara in return, ignoring the sweat beading on his forehead as he released Shukaku's leg and directed his attention to blocking the incoming sand from the demon as best as he could while Kintetsu directed his gold platform out of danger.

As they flew out of harm's way, Gaara constantly moved his hands and directed his chakra to influence Shukaku's sand as much as he could. In the end he was barely able to slow the crashing sand enough for them to escape the deadly tunnel it had created for them.

"**Oh **_**now**_** you want to run?"** Shukaku cackled as his thudding footsteps signified that he was in full pursuit. He could only move so fast, but with the ground he could cover with every step, it wasn't like he had to be a world-class sprinter in a giant's body to keep up, **"It's too late for that! I'm comin' for you cornbread!"**

'In a direct battle of strength we don't have a chance,' Kintetsu thought to himself as he focused on keeping himself and his son away from the raging biju as best as he could, dodging upward blasts of sand pillars that spiraled into the air. If they found themselves caught in that they would be torn apart in an instant, 'This has to work, or no one has a prayer tonight.'

Shukaku was actually beginning to find it fun to chase the pair of vermin down, **"Usually all I get are screams and people begging God to keep them safe, but you guys are kind of fun! An annoying sort of fun that'll feel therapeutic when I stain the bottom of my foot with your corpses, but still, fun!"**

As he continued to chase and attack, an errant step caused Shukaku to plunge into the biggest pit trap ever created. It was an actual crevice, carved into the earth over thousands of years that Gaara had covered with a thin layer of sand over the opening to disguise it and the fact that the terrain became rockier instead of sandy.

Between that and working his mojo to constantly upset Shukaku's own sand control, by this time Gaara was exhausted. Kintetsu knew it as he hurriedly set his platform down and brought forth the full weight of his Gold Dust down onto Shukaku to try and pin him down. Gold weighed more than sand, thus he could possibly keep the biju at bay until he could draw the seal that had been given to him by Minato. That would ensure Shukaku's detainment until sunrise.

"Are you alright Gaara?" He knew the answer to that question no matter what Gaara said. He'd used a lot of chakra and was noticeably breathing hard, "Can you continue?"

Trying to impose his will over that much sand, sand that was already being controlled by a being more powerful than him, took its toll on his reserves. Even so, a ninja of the desert could never afford to show weakness, "Yes."

"Go rest," Kintetsu said, narrowing his eyes when he saw Gaara about to protest, "That's an order. Remember what I said to you before I allowed you to come with me. I have this handled from here. There's nothing more you can do."

"Gaara!"

Hearing Temari and Kankuro's voices, Gaara heeded his father's demand by begrudgingly heading over that way, all the while thinking to himself how weak he was. When it came to making a difference, all he could do was ensure that they had a chance at running away. The trap only worked because Shukaku was too maniacal and eager to spill their blood.

Upon reaching his brother and sister he found that Naruto and Tenten were with them. Strange, but it was of no consequence to him, "Why are you all here?"

"Because I'm not gonna sit back and wait to get killed," Naruto said, tapping his foot on the sand impatiently, "…But the Shukaku thing disappeared. What happened to it?"

"It's handled," Gaara assured everyone, "We can't kill him. He has too much power. But father believes that his Gold Dust and the biju-warding seal can hold Shukaku down until sunrise."

BOOM!

The edge of the cliff where Kintetsu had been standing so that he could smash Shukaku underneath the weight of his Gold Dust blew apart in a massive explosion of wind that rocked the entire area, forcefully blowing sand and chunks of rock even as far away as the kids had been standing.

"…" Tenten cringed at the first thought that came to mind after things began to die down, "He didn't happen to be standing over there… did he?"

"DAD!"

A large claw flew up over the edge of the crevice and smashed down as Shukaku began pulling himself out of what had been meant to be his temporary prison, **"Ugh… stupid human with his stupid gold powder crap…"** He belligerently muttered to himself,** "I couldn't breathe down there! Not that I need to breathe… but I still like having the option!"**

This thing was out of its mind.

And they were all alone, watching Shukaku stand back up to his full height and look around for something else to kill. Needless to say, they were the next ones he saw, and he pointed straight at them as if he were calling his shot. In reality he was stirring the sand around them to bring about their violent demise. This had not been the best idea.

"Shakuton: Shoukyaku Eikoudan no Jutsu (Scorch Release: Incinerating Flare Jutsu)!"

A gigantic flaming red orb flew through the air and made contact with Shukaku's arm, exploding and absorbing even the slightest bit of moisture in it, causing it to harden and become a brittle, inflexible limb right up to the shoulder.

From there, dozens of kunai with explosive tags attached hit him at the joint and blew the entire arm off in one move.

"O~kay," Naruto said, not quite sure how to react to that gigantic joint attack that seemed to come from out of nowhere, "Apparently that just happened."

Turning around, Naruto saw Kakashi leading the entire remnants of the Sand Nomads that had remained in the village, "Sorry about taking so long to catch up. I wasn't the only one that wanted to come you see," Standing next to him was a woman with green, yellow tipped hair up in a bun. She wore a sleeveless black dress with lavender leggings, and much like most other Sand Nomads seemed to be completely serious, "The blond boy and the little girl with the buns are mine. Say hi to Pakura kids!"

"Hi." Naruto and Tenten said weakly, both sparing a lame wave her way.

"What the fuck just happened?" Kankuro asked as he watched shinobi after shinobi leap into battle to try and keep Shukaku at bay. It was amazing. He'd never seen so many Sand Nomads fight one enemy together before, "They're… fighting Shukaku?"

"Yeah, apparently getting verbally emasculated by a ten year-old and watching four kids have more bravery than them wasn't really in the cards for them," Kakashi pointed out before turning to Pakura who was preparing another jutsu, "Was that Scorch Release? It's quite a kekkei genkai."

"Hope that you never get hit by it Copy Ninja Kakashi," Pakura said, "It's not really the nicest sort of ninjutsu for the human body to feel. Now let's go." She then leapt off to back up the others and fight off this beast.

Yes, he'd just gotten threatened, but that didn't mean anything to Kakashi. Most ninjas he'd wound up conversing with legitimately threatened him, but most of them weren't as good-looking as Pakura. Most weren't really as dangerous either.

Looking over at the kids, Kakashi saw that they were quite confused on what to do next, at least his were.

"So," Tenten said nervously, "What now?"

"Now? It's not really so complicated. We dust him," Kakashi said matter-of-factly before loudly shouting his widespread order to the rest of the ninjas present, "LIGHT HIM UP!"

Hundreds of prepared kunai with more explosive tags flew through the air as a series of wind jutsu from fan-users on the ground propelled them at Shukaku with more speed and force as explosions chained together off of his titanic frame.

Kankuro got into the act by using a strange six-armed three-eyed puppet to fly around the attack zones, dropping multiple explosives and flammable accelerants to add to the combat effort while Temari blew away enough sand coming their way to keep them as safe as possible.

Gaara was stunned at the sight of his siblings fighting Shukaku almost as fiercely as he had. They didn't have his power, but it didn't matter. The fact that they kept themselves in front of him as he tried to recover his chakra was not lost on him either.

"Are you done with it yet?" Naruto asked Tenten as he kept her shielded with his clones, blowing sand away and sacrificing themselves to ensure that she had time to do… whatever it was she was doing, "We're kind of in the open here and you're taking forever!"

"I'm doing my best here!" Tenten replied, hastily trying to construct something useful on the spot with the supplies she had on her person. She could hear the cries of humanity going on around her and tried her best to block them out as she worked, "Just wait! With what everybody else is doing we might as well be throwing firecrackers at him, so just chill out and let me finish what I'm making!"

He trusted Tenten's little inventor's touch of eccentricity, and knew by now that she had a knack for coming up with absurdly strange yet useful ninja tools, but on the battlefield in the middle of a fight with a biju wasn't really the best place to be improvising.

She had a point though. As pretty as it all looked, they might as well have been hucking spitballs at that thing.

Shukaku grunted in annoyance at the blasts as he tried to cover himself up with his remaining arm. Growling aloud as he saw another large flaming red orb being charged from Pakura, he lowered his hand and swung his arm, sending a wave of sand at the attacking ninjas, **"Die!"**

"Fall back!"

Those that were unable to provide a defense were buried underneath the sand that rended the lifeblood from them once they were covered. Many were quick enough however to either dodge or provide a method of protection that kept them in the fight, as desperate as it was.

From behind his own series of protective walls he'd raised from the ground to protect himself and the kids, Kakashi peered out at Shukaku, taking in the situation, "Hmm," Looking down at his right hand before looking back up, Kakashi pulled up his headband to reveal his Sharingan eye, "I'll be right back. Pay close attention. All of you."

He had been speaking not only to Naruto and Tenten, but to Kankuro, Temari, and Gaara as well.

Rushing out from behind cover and using the cover of the repeated distance artillery from the Sand Nomads, the facemask-clad ninja decided that it was time to make his presence felt and go for a game-changer.

Kakashi quickly formed a clone at his side that held up its left arm near Kakashi's right arm, a blade of electricity in their hands between them. Spreading out as they ran across the sands, they used the Sharingan to dodge and maneuvered their way over and past Shukaku's desert-bending attacks, stretching a chain of lightning between the two of them wider and wider.

"Raiden (Lightning Transmission)!"

Upon reaching Shukaku's legs, Kakashi ran straight through them, meeting significant resistance. Still though, he managed to cut through them at the ankles like trunks of redwood trees. He could feel Shukaku tilt over before he finished getting out from the biju's shadow.

For all of his size comprised in a solid form, Shukaku was still made of sand. That much was clear from both Pakura's attacks and his own. They could dismember him, so maybe with enough force they could-.

Any further pondering on what they could do to Shukaku to turn things further in their favor had to be put on hold. When Kakashi cut out Shukaku's legs and he began to fall, there was one appendage he had that could stop him from completely losing his balance. It was big, long, and rested behind his body.

Shukaku's tail swung down the moment his balance was compromised in order to keep him upright. Kakashi barely saw it just as it crashed down on the sand right by him.

"Kakashi/Kakashi-sensei!" Per his directions, Naruto and Tenten had been watching as closely as they could, and they saw Shukaku's tail slam down, presumably on Kakashi. There wasn't anything to Kawarimi with out in the middle of the desert, and there was little chance that he had one prepared anyway with the jutsu he had used to attack with.

Waving his one arm around to try and stay upright, Shukaku's tail posted on the ground helped him do so before it melded with the desert and he went still, completely ignoring the attacks of the other ninjas for a few moments. That was all the time he needed to regrow his feet and then his arm.

"**Grr… that's better,"** Shukaku said, glaring hatefully as he lifted his tail up into the air again and waved it back and forth slowly as it began to vibrate, **"My prey isn't supposed to fight back! ****Suna Taihou (Sand Cannon)****!"**

From his tail, Shukaku began launching large globs of sand, using the side-to-side waving of his tail to space out the multiple projectiles evenly across the battlefield. The chunks of sand whistled ominously as they flew through the air.

"**Naruto, you had better get behind that wall and stay there!"** Kurama demanded upon seeing the battle unfold through Naruto's eyes.

Every time one of the Sand Cannon shells made contact with anything, they exploded in highly pressurized bursts of volatile air. The shockwave of the air being released had enough power to cover a fifteen-foot circumference. Regarding defensive setups like Kakashi's walls that he'd left, being hit with these directly blew entire pieces of them away. Weaker ones never stood a chance, along with the souls behind them.

Those without any means to take cover were even worse off. There didn't seem to be a limit on the number of these shells that Shukaku could launch, because they simply kept on coming. This was the power of a biju, and it was nearly unlimited.

Shukaku seemed to take delight in his destructive hail of death that he wrought down upon his enemies. Even in his darkened eyes, you could see the mirth in the yellow dots at their centers as he watched the blood stain the sand from the body count he was beginning to pile up at an increasing frequency.

Having heeded Kurama's advice, Naruto turtled up with the rest of the people taking cover, watching Shukaku's relentless attack bombard the desert around him, 'How are we supposed to stop this guy?' Naruto thought to Kurama, 'Hey, you fought him before! How did you do it?'

"**Well I never had a real fight with him in the desert! He's actually tough here!"**

'Kurama!'

"**Alright, let me think! Okay, compared to me he's slower than dirt, so there's that. Oh, and he can regenerate as long as he's in the desert, but you saw that already,"** In his defense it had been a long time since he'd actually fought Shukaku, **"Wow… you know, normally I'd just blow him apart with a Bijudama and leave before he pulled himself together. I'm kind of lost on how to fight him like a weakling."**

There had to be something. Nothing was _totally_ unbeatable. Kurama had a point, Shukaku wasn't very mobile, but he wasn't coming their way at all anymore since Pakura had taken his arm out and Kakashi had gotten his legs.

There was something seriously up, because if he was really able to shrug off their best stuff the way he had been, why not keep going their way and trying to crush them? They couldn't stop him.

Was this really all there was to him? Was the best Naruto could do really sit around and make himself a target to eventually take out while everyone else got massacred around him? He'd never been on the battlefield before. He'd never seen this kind of death before. This kind of bloodshed. Even during the Hyuuga/Uchiha battle, he hadn't seen much of it other than the aftermath.

Here, he could see people blow apart after unfortunate folks took direct hits from the Sand Cannon shells. All of the blood, all of the violence. There was a human arm… several feet away from where he was taking cover. A human arm, no longer attached to its body.

He was a long, long way away from home. Away from the safety of his island nation. Away from the beaches and the forests and river ways that he knew like the back of his hand.

Away from his well-respected clan that provided him shelter even if they didn't really accept him. Away from the clan leader, feared as the man with the eyes of the Rikudou Sennin.

Away from his mother, who always made sure that everything was okay.

Talking about being a ninja that his clan could be proud of was different when you were out and actually bearing witness to what could befall a ninja in this world. All of the bravado that he had left in his body just found its way sucked out of him. The heart and soul he felt inside of himself when he was lambasting the Sand Nomads drained its way out of him quicker than he could measure.

"_**Whether he had power or not, in a way he was just like you or any other person, only as he got older he got fed up with the world being the way it was and he gained enough power to do something about it."**_

Naruto didn't have the power to do something about everything that was wrong in the world around him. He didn't have the power to save everyone. He didn't have the power to beat Shukaku or turn the beast away. Not yet, if he ever would at all.

He didn't have some genetic mutation that gave him all-powerful potential to change the world, and even with a biju in his body, he didn't have the slightest idea of how that worked or if it even did anything for him outside of giving him someone extra to talk to.

He was however fed up with the way things were, and the way things were going. If this was what the people of Kaze no Kuni had to deal with on a monthly basis, then it definitely had to change. Even if that couldn't happen overnight, he could at least try to assuage the losses now. Hiding wouldn't solve anything.

Getting a tap on his arm, Naruto got a nervous thumbs-up from white-faced Tenten, letting him know that what she'd been preparing all along was ready. Making sure he garnered the attention of Gaara, Temari, and Kankuro, Naruto motioned for them to move closer so they could be in on this. Now the weapon needed a method of delivery to the prime location.

As Shukaku grew tired of things once the killing began to slow, he figured that it was time to move on to that helpless-looking town not too far away. Finding it prudent to bring things to a close before he got too bored or before he wasted more time before the sun came up, Shukaku took a deep breath and inhaled sharply, his stomach beginning to expand as he did so.

"Ryuusa Bakuryuu (Quicksand Waterfall Flow)!"

A massive wave of sand rolled over the desert surface Shukaku's way and crashed into him, pushing the breath out of him until he'd gathered enough to do what he had been aiming to do. Other than that, due to the fact that he was so oppressively large, this did next to nothing to harm him. It was the equivalent of a person wading in the ocean and letting an incoming wave of water crash into their lower body.

Shukaku had stubby legs though, so when the sand hit, his lower belly that hung over them wound up being hit. As the sand wave broke apart, a diminutive figure that Shukaku paid absolutely no mind ran up his massive body as fast as he could.

From the plan that had been worked out behind cover, Gaara had used what he had left of his chakra to move that huge amount of sand into Shukaku, knowing that it wouldn't even make him flinch. That wasn't the point however. Making sure that a safe pocket existed in the wave, he sent Naruto along with it, allowing him to get onto Shukaku and begin his charge straight upward.

Compared to all of the explosive tags that he was being peppered with, Shukaku couldn't be bothered to notice Naruto's presence in the slightest. The Sand Nomad attackers were able to aim in a way that kept Naruto from being hit as he ascended, effectively covering him.

'This is the worst idea ever! I'm gonna die!' Naruto thought to himself with tears of fear in his eyes. In his arms was a massive ball of explosive tags the size of his head. Dozens of them, all rolled together and bound to create a weapon that would create the sum of their individual explosions in one blast, 'What the hell?'

As he ran up Shukaku's body as fast as he could, he could see and feel the sand biju's belly expanding as he took another deep breath to suck in more air.

"**Crap!"** Kurama warned Naruto again, **"That lazy rat still doesn't like the feeling of using a Bijudama, but if he hits this it won't matter if this is weaker or not! It's strong enough! Don't you let him release that breath or everyone down there is dead!"**

What!?

"No!" Naruto shouted to himself, gritting his teeth as he began to see everything through a red tint in front of his eyes. The pace of his footsteps inexplicably picked up and increased his speed to something he'd never felt before. He turned a twenty-second sprint into a five-second one with no reason why. He was running up a vertical surface, faster than he had ever moved on the ground, "Yes! Yes-yes-yes-yes-yes!"

He'd never felt so aggressive or powerful in his life. It was incredible. He could do it. With this he could help. He could do something.

Inside of Naruto's body, Kurama bit back a growl that was intended for himself. He promised himself when he got locked up that he wasn't going to let that brat have any chakra, but he somewhat liked Naruto more than most humans, and if the boy had to watch Shukaku decimate what was left of the Sand Nomads fighting the battle-.

…Well in the end it didn't matter. Kurama still just felt like he was getting soft on some worthless human boy.

He would give Naruto some of his chakra this time. _Only_ this time. No more freebies, **'Make it count Naruto.' "Get up that wall boy!"**

"I'm goin' 'ttebayo!" The moment he reached the top of Shukaku's chest he saw him open his mouth and raise his arm to hit himself in the belly. This was it. Lighting the fuse on the gigantic explosive tag ball, Naruto jumped straight forward and upward, positioning himself right in front of Shukaku's mouth where he hurled the improvised weapon into his gullet as hard as he could, "Rah!"

"**Fuuton: Renkuudan (Wind Release: Drilling Air Bullet)****!"**

"BANG!"

The moment Shukaku hit himself in the stomach to release the wind of his attack, the explosion of the oversized ordinance met the volatile, tearing air and caused a horrid reaction at the back of Shukaku's throat.

For Sand Nomads, the surreal sight of an explosion big enough to blow off Shukaku's head and the top of his shoulders was the greatest thing any of them had ever seen. To a few of those subjected to the monster's terror for decades, to those that had lost plenty of family and friends to him, to those who had their nightmares dominated by him, it was enough to bring a tear to their eyes.

XxX

"That was…" Kankuro said, stunned into silence. For once, the puppeteer couldn't find the words to say. Temari fought back tears at the sight of Shukaku's head going up like a party popper. She hoped that it hurt. She hoped that he'd felt that all the way to his core, for their mother and for everyone else he killed, "…I really think I like that kid now. A lot."

Temari had to admit, that wasn't even a hundredth as smooth as anything Minato would have done, but as ugly as it was, as foolish as it was, she had to admit it had left an impression, "Not as cool as Minato-sama… but everybody's got to start somewhere I guess."

Gaara's eyes quivered at the sight. His mouth simply wouldn't allow him to close it after what he'd just seen, 'He didn't have nearly enough strength to stand up to Shukaku, and he chose to anyway.'

Anyone else could have gone up there and enacted Naruto's part of the plan, but he had been the one to volunteer. Not only that, but he'd gotten the job done.

Uzumaki Naruto huh? Interesting guy.

"I'm brilliant!" Tenten crowed in victory at the sight of a headless Shukaku falling backwards onto the sands in gigantic segments, "I made that explosive tag ball up on the spot!" And Naruto had been the one to deploy her ordinance to the strike zone. What was with that red aura around him though? From where they were he looked like was an ant covered in a red shroud? "I wonder what kind of jutsu-?"

Oh crap. Nevermind that at the moment.

Naruto had been up there. And it wasn't like there was anything that could break his fall from that high up.

"Naruto!" Running from their cover area, Tenten sprinted out over the sand dunes to try and get to him. It was a futile effort however since there was no way she would reach him before he hit the ground. Even if she did, there wasn't anything she could do to help him, "Oh no, what did we let him volunteer to do?"

XxX

"DAMN IIIIIIIT!" Naruto yelled desperately as he flailed his arms and fell through the air helplessly, "I can't go out like this! I can't even pat myself on the back first? AAAAAHHHHHH!"

"Kamataichi no Jutsu (Sickle Weasel Jutsu)!"

A seemingly stray trail of wind flew through the air and diverted Naruto's fall from a straight downward drop to a significantly more angled one, sending him farther away from the battlefield than before, but ensuring that he wouldn't splat off of the sand.

It really kind of hurt though, like there were tiny blades in the wind current.

"Ow! Ow! Ow!" Naruto shouted as he could feel his body get nicked up, "Thanks fan people! Ow!"

Even with the diverted positioning of his fall being the flattest diagonal angle that the wind-users could muster, it was still a terrifying trip and it didn't take too much longer for Naruto to begin screaming his head off again all the way down.

"Oh Kami! Clone cushion! Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)!"

All of the blond kids bunched together in the air made it easy for Tenten to follow him until he hit the ground, but by then she had gotten close enough to locate him on her own. In a matter of moments she found the trail that his body had dragged through the sand before he was sent headfirst into a sand dune.

His legs clad in orange shorts kicking rapidly were a dead giveaway that it was definitely him.

"Naruto!" Tenten grabbed onto him and pulled him out so that he could actually breathe again.

The two sat in the sand, breathing heavily at their respective ordeals and looking up at the sky before they looked at each other. As their breathing slowed they eventually began giggling at what had just happened. Kids had done something. Something important.

Interlocking their hands for a playful test of strength, they grinned toothily at each other, "Heh," Naruto chuckled, "Say it. You know you want to."

"I'm awesome!"

"No!" That was not exactly what he'd been looking for, "_I'm_ awesome! I did the legwork!"

"Yeah, but it was partly Gaara's plan too that got you there, and I was the one that gave you the explosive tag ball!"

"Okay fine, everybody's awesome. Yay team." Naruto said, standing up and pulling Tenten to her feet as well, "I thought I was gonna die though! Like three times! I can't believe that worked!"

At that, Tenten pouted and put her hands on her hips, "Oh, so you don't believe in my ninja tools? I swore it'd work. That should have been enough by itself," The fact that she came up with the idea and put it together on the spot with every explosive tag the two of them had left between them notwithstanding, "I'm a great inventor."

"Stitching a bunch of explosive tags together is inventing?"

"Well who else did it that you know of?"

Maybe that was because most people didn't need something like that capable of taking out an entire enemy battery when regular explosive tags could be enough to do the job on their own on a lesser scale. Against a biju, there was no such thing as overkill however.

Still, there was more to see to, and they both took off back in the direction of the battlefield to try and lend some sort of hand… if they could. They sort of wasted most of everything they had that would have been useful then and there.

XxX

(Back in the Village)

A single Sand Nomad ninja had the catbird's seat when it came to viewing the battle against the titanic Shukaku. Even at the distance away from the battlefield he was, he could see everything worth paying attention to with his scope.

All of Shukaku's techniques, how wonderfully destructive they were. How he could enforce his will over the sand around him, the brute force behind his approach. He really was a beast.

The ninja's eyes had a yellow glow to them and a sickly intrigued smirk sat on his lips as an overly long tongue dropped from his mouth for a moment.

Orochimaru had to admit that Pakura had an interesting kekkei genkai to do what she did at the start of the battle, but the human opponents hadn't really done anything to impress him until Shukaku's top portion blew away entirely. What a show!

The little red blip that had scaled Shukaku beforehand though… what was that? Orochimaru had to admit, the scientist in him was extremely curious, especially considering what happened to Shukaku's head after it got right by Shukaku's mouth.

Either way, he was getting excited about getting to his laboratories and putting some of this information to work. There were breakthroughs to be had. Always more breakthroughs, as human potential was almost unlimited, "Kukukukukuku… I can't wait." He would have some interested clients after he put some of this into action.

His notes were thorough, his interest was primed. His work here was done.

XxX

(Outside of the Village – On the Battlefield)

Managing to return to the site of the desperate conflict, Naruto and Tenten came to a stop when they saw something rather imposing. Around where Shukaku's body was to have fallen, a towering sandstorm encircled his body. Wind users tried their best to blow it away, but it was a combination byproduct of Shukaku's wind and sand control.

No one could see through it, and anyone foolish enough to try and pass through it found their flesh shredded from their bones in response.

They had seen that firsthand just upon arrival. Not a lovely sight to put it mildly.

"What's this?" Tenten asked, "Another attack?"

She had gone up to Pakura to ask this question. From earlier she'd determined that Pakura was a strong kunoichi and someone for a girl like her to look up to. The fact that she was still alive so far into the battle only solidified that opinion for the young girl.

Regarding Tenten with a momentary side glance, Pakura locked her eyes back onto the sandstorm, "Apparently Shukaku took more damage than he ever wanted to. He can't regenerate it and keep fighting," Naruto and Tenten high-fived in response, but the green-haired woman wasn't done, "So he's put this measure up to keep anyone from reaching him until he's fully healed."

"**I forgot what an annoying runt Shukaku could be,"** Kurama muttered, **"The arrogant idiot. Even when he screws up like he did it still doesn't matter. You can't kill him in the desert. You have to get him outside of it, otherwise it's more impossible than it usually is to hurt one of us. He doesn't even feel pain in the desert."**

That wasn't good. He was going to fully regenerate and he didn't even feel pain? They blew his head off! Who regenerated that? Who didn't feel that? What did you have to do to put a biju down for the count?

Whatever it was, none of them particularly had anything left to do it with. Pakura still had chakra, but Scorch Release wasn't going to do any good against a sandstorm. The wind users were trying to use their fan-guided ninjutsu to break the storm, but nothing was working.

"Anyone got anymore big plans?" Naruto asked, leaving the question open for answering by anyone in the general vicinity, "The last one probably used up my good luck for the whole month. It kind of filled my good idea quota too."

"Yes. How flexible are you little one?" Pakura asked rhetorically, lips quirking momentarily at a touch of dark humor that came to mind, "Because you might want to limber up and get ready to kiss your ass goodbye."

* * *

**Shisora (because I'm still not going to put your real name out on the internet: common etiquette), brother you're awesome. You know why. You put me through hell trying to put those eight updates out for that challenge, but the prize is (or will be) grand indeed. Oh yes.**

**Anyway, I'd already had this written before, probably better than I did this time because something about it feels… I don't know, off to me.**

**With my computer breaking down though I couldn't get to the original that I wrote, or the notes I had to outline it, so I had to redo this from memory as best as I could. The next one as well, because I had two chambered and at the ready, and then BOOM! B.S.O.D.**

**I lack the money to do what is needed to remedy this until I get a few bucks to buy the equipment I need, because I literally have nothing. Come on new kickass job don't fail me now. I came this far and got my foot in the door so I'd better have owned that interview. Working in retail is soul-crushing. I'd much rather follow a reporter around and shoot and edit their stuff per the job I interviewed for.**

**You've probably got chapter 8 of this coming soon, because I want to get it rewritten while I have it in my person to go ahead and get it done while it's on my mind If you're still with me expect that in the next day or so.**

**Anyway, I hope you guys still enjoyed. Kenchi out.**


	8. Dig Your Own Grave

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. So I read chapter 646 of the manga… and yeah, I can ignore some of this shit right? Like, I can just ignore it and pretend I never found out that the Juubi was a tree? I know it's supposed to be canon, and with Mokuton he can claim that he sort of foreshadowed it what with the Senju getting the physical energy descended from the Sage of Six Paths, but man really? Come on, an unbreakable, vengeful god tree that wants yer chakra? Word?

**Chapter 8: Dig Your Own Grave**

* * *

Okay, no need to panic. So what if Shukaku was regenerating as they stood around the outside of an impenetrable sandstorm? That kind of damage had to take some kind of time to fix. For God's sake they'd blown his entire head and half of his upper body off.

"How long will it take for him to fix himself?" Naruto asked, dreading the answer. Shukaku would probably have a bone to pick with him first and foremost when he put himself back together, "Like an hour? Two hours?"

"Thirty minutes maybe," Pakura said with a pronounced frown, "He can repair himself quickly from what we've seen, but a good chunk of him was gone when he fell. We might have destroyed his brain temporarily as well, if he truly has a physical one, so that might be a factor."

"Uh huh… and when's sunrise?" Tenten asked with a nervous smile as she looked to the dark horizon, "Please say it's soon."

Pakura gave her a wry smile in return, "It's soon."

"Really?"

"No, but you told me to say that it was so I did."

So it was over.

If Tenten of all people was basically out of explosive tags, who else could have more on them? They'd been bombarding Shukaku with as much heavy artillery as they could muster from the very beginning. They'd lost over half of their original force of ninjas, and facing a full power Shukaku with decreased manpower and firepower would end badly.

Naruto dropped to his knees and placed his hands onto the ground, 'No. Not after all of this. Not after what everyone did to get us this far. Kakashi… Gaara's dad… everyone that died fighting all night long.'

To put forth so much effort and to fail, and for that failure to mean the eradication of everyone there… it made him sick. It was his fault if that were to come to pass. This was what being a ninja was really like, to the most extreme degree.

Every decision you made, whether you made it with the best of intentions in mind, could cost lives. Not just your own, but the lives of those that chose to follow you. Whether he'd meant to or not he'd directed the others to follow him when he went to follow Kintetsu and Gaara.

He just meant that he didn't want to die a coward. He just meant that it was his choice to at least try and fight where the civilians such as Ayame and Teuchi didn't when he'd said those things.

It was then that he looked up and saw that no one was trying to run away. They were all waiting for the sandstorm to come down. Whatever may transpire when it did, they weren't going to even try to run away beforehand.

Well if that was the case, the least he could do was stand up and do the same.

Moving over to the only people there that he knew, Naruto stood with Gaara, Temari, and Kankuro, "Well… it's not like we can quit now right? There's got to be a way to get past this thing somehow."

"You still think we can win?" Temari asked incredulously, "Did you hit your head when you landed?"

"Yeah, but that's not the point," Naruto admitted, "Come on! After all we did, we can't just roll over now and let Shukaku get back up!"

To prove a point as to the futility of the situation, Temari stepped forward and swung her fan at the sandstorm, "Kamataichi no Jutsu (Sickle Weasel Jutsu)!" The resulting powerful wind force from her fan smashed into the unnatural storm and did nothing to disrupt it in the slightest, "See? Feel free to try and get past that. Go ahead. Run into it face first. Maybe that'll work?"

As gorgeous as she was when she was being all sarcastic and snippy, now wasn't the time.

With a growl, Naruto glared at the older girl with the spiky blonde ponytails, "Well I'm not giving up." Before anyone could say anything else, Gaara walked forward toward the sandstorm by himself, "Hey, what are you doing?"

"I will not let this monster win," Gaara declared as he held his head, "The power over sand, the sand that comes to my defense without my direction… this is what our mother meant when she said to us that there was nothing she wouldn't protect us from. The least I can do, is fight the battle that she lost her life fighting."

With that, he held his hands up in the direction of the sandstorm in a position that appeared to be him trying to pry open the air. He visibly shook and strained as he tried to pull his hands apart, sweat dripping down his forehead as he worked.

Temari moved forward to direct Gaara to stop. He'd used too much chakra all night long to waste anymore doing something like this. Kankuro prevented her from doing so however.

"You are a relic from the past…" Gaara said to Shukaku as he tried to rip through his sandstorm covering, "…The only reason you seem to exist is to cause pain and torment to the people of the desert. My mother… she had a heart that was willing to face you to protect others despite heading to her death. She knew it was our purpose to prevent you from massacring others that can't fight back. Her purpose is my purpose… and I have the strength to fight for it!"

Suddenly, Gaara's hands spread far apart and a massive rip appeared in the sandstorm. The amount of effort he had to put forth in order to achieve such a task was enough to force blood to gush from his nose.

Amazement set aside, every ninja present proceeded to pile through without missing a beat. They didn't know how long Gaara could keep it open for, and it was the best chance they had to try and stop the monster inside.

Amongst them were Naruto, Tenten, Temari, and Kankuro.

"How in the world did he do that?" Tenten asked aloud as they all ran into the breach.

Kankuro just chuckled at the question, "Our Gaara is strong. Stronger than even we thought apparently." No kidding. Naruto and Tenten now felt more grateful than ever that they really didn't wind up fighting Gaara when they'd first met.

Upon getting far enough past the sandstorm they came upon an incredible sight however. It wasn't that of Shukaku rebuilding, though he was indeed trying to do so. Every time sand tried to rise to reform parts of his body it found itself pinned down and spaced back apart by Gold Dust.

Impossible. They had seen Kintetsu fall at the fury of Shukaku hours ago. But as they drew closer they saw that indeed it was him directing the traffic of his own weapon of choice. Temari and Kankuro could have run up to the man and hugged him… you know, if that sort of thing wasn't frowned upon as a show of weakness in their culture.

Also because of the wild upshots of sand that kept going off around him, probably the consciousness of Shukaku trying to get rid of the man that was preventing him from forming his body. However he was being protected from that by of all people Kakashi. Both of them seemed rather battered and torn up from their respective hardships from the battle, but they were alive.

"Oh," Kakashi said upon noticing that he and Kintetsu were no longer alone, having been joined by the other Sand Nomads, "Hello there! Which of you blew Shukaku's head off? Because that was really helpful to Kintetsu-san to finish his plan."

Temari moved closer but made sure to keep her distance, "Dad. How did you-? I mean, we saw you get-."

Kintetsu just stood focusing his attention on Shukaku, "Gold Dust forms a better protective shield than you'd think," He explained, "I did fall in with Shukaku though, and I hid myself inside of his body dispersing as much of the dust as I could through his body to try and weigh him down. Then he blew apart," A smirk crossed his face at that point, "It's much easier to hold him down when he's not whole."

"The situation is contained," Kakashi asserted with a shrug, "More or less at least." At that point he held up the design for the Beast Warding Seal and gestured to the ground around them, "Did you know this sandstorm makes a perfect circle around Shukaku? Convenient."

No way. He drew out the array himself once the sandstorm went up and did the most time-consuming part of the job for him? That sly bastard Kakashi.

It was then that Naruto realized that in the back of his mind he could hear Kurama shouting his head off and cursing Naruto for walking back into the limits of another one of those biju-limiting seals. In return he let out a chuckle that was more out of disorientation than humor, amazement that it all seemed to be over.

So that was a real battle, where real people on your side died right in front of you with nothing that you could do for them?

He had just fought in his first real large-scale battle, and he never wanted to do anything like that ever again. Within two hours when the sun finally surfaced, Naruto and Tenten savored that sight and burned it into their heads forever.

It might have been just a sunrise in the grand scheme of things, but it was the most beautiful sunrise that either of them had ever seen because they had to live through the night just to see it. Thankfully it didn't rise in the direction where the bodies were littered. It let them enjoy it for just a few seconds until they had to make do with the aftermath of what they'd survived.

XxX

"What an interesting night," Orochimaru commented to himself as he left the village area, a content smile on his twisted white visage as he carelessly sauntered away from the site of a battle for survival that he had directly instigated via his own actions, "The biju summoning ritual works, at least to attract Shukaku to an area. I'll have to test it later before I attempt to market the idea to one of the wealthier clans. But the things that I've observed…"

For some reason his mind kept going back to the sight of the little boy charging up Shukaku's chest, body covered in blazing red chakra. It was magnificent. It was something that he wanted to know more about. That wasn't regular chakra and he knew it, but that was all he knew.

And that was what ate at him.

That little boy was with Hatake Kakashi. Well that would make it somewhat easier to keep tabs on him than if he was with a no-name ninja. It would make him harder to get close enough to study though, but there were always means to an end, and he had the resources to achieve them.

That power was beyond human, and the prospect of figuring out what it was and how he obtained it was just a delicious thought. Orochimaru believed that he might have just gotten a new pet project to analyze.

He just had to get some things together to begin the process of studying him.

XxX

(Later That Morning)

Headed back east. That was the idea. Kakashi had pitched it, and no one had any arguments against it. Get them the hell out of that desert. There was no reason to be there anymore since the trail on Minato had drawn them a little closer to him, and striking while the iron was hot was for the best.

After the battle, Gaara had chakra exhaustion for his efforts to try and level the playing field of the battle. Kintetsu had several grievous wounds from his tribulation of enduring Shukaku's pressurized air attack and then surviving inside of his body for hours.

Those two were required to rest for the time being after the dead had been retrieved, thus leaving Kankuro and Temari to bid farewell to the visiting party on its way out of the country.

Naruto, sitting on the top of the cart with Tenten in their normal guard positions took to their task silently and dutifully. Neither of the two were complaining about something as trivial as the heat after the night they'd had before. It just didn't seem anything close to being important any longer.

Kakashi noticed this. Between entering the desert and the beginning of their journey to leave it, they had grown. As horrible as the battle with Shukaku had been for them to have to see, it was probably for the best that they did, 'It's better for them to get a taste of what they've gotten themselves into sooner rather than later.'

Tenten passed part of her time drawing out designs for what she thought could be good weapons to try and create some time in the future once she got the supplies and the mechanical knowhow to do her thing. Last night had proven to her if she hadn't known it before that she had a knack for ninja tools, and that would be her point of exploration for her development.

Naruto's mind was elsewhere at the moment, "That was a biju," He said, stating the obvious before he gulped hard, "We shouldn't have survived that, should we have?"

"No," Kakashi said bluntly, not willing to sugarcoat something so serious, "Shukaku is considered the weakest, even with his desert powers. Not for a lack of brute strength or power mind you, but because out of the nine of them he has the weakest mind. I didn't know what people meant until I saw it for myself."

"Could have fooled me," Tenten said, "Nothing about him seemed weak."

Kakashi just tapped on his own temple for emphasis, "He could have tried to destroy us all far sooner than when he actually tried to wipe you and the Sand Nomads out at once. He relies so much on his brute force and size, and the killing was nothing but a game to him, even when he was losing limbs since he regenerated everything. He neglected to pay attention to the smaller threats in exchange for trying to wipe out as many of you as he could at once. Smaller threats like Kintetsu surviving, and Naruto here special-delivering a blockbuster explosive down his throat."

At that, Tenten gave Naruto a grin that he returned and nudged his shoulder jestingly.

"By the way," Kakashi gave Naruto an overly pleasant smile behind his facemask that did nothing to hide the severity of his pending order, "Don't ever do anything like that again. If you died before I could get you to Minato-sama I could never face him or Kushina-sama again."

Wow, they were glad to see that he cared about them for the right reasons. Not. Were they really just burdens to him after all, just a means to show his loyalty to Minato for whatever reason he felt it for him? It was kind of a punch to the stomach to think about really.

"That… and I think you two are beginning to grow on me a little more than I thought you would," Kakashi concluded, turning back to the front to steer the cart along the road, "You're both good kids."

Maybe he did really like them a little?

Thinking of his dad, Naruto remembered what Kankuro and Temari had told him about the man before all hell had broken loose. Even after hearing it from their mouths and hearing whispers around the Uzumaki Clan's village about how talented he was, it was still hard to imagine that he was so powerful.

'My dad could have taken on Shukaku all by himself?' Naruto thought as he looked out along the vast desert, 'Could he really be that strong?' Could _anyone_ be that strong? He just couldn't imagine it, 'That's just too much to believe isn't it?'

"**Don't be so sure kid,"** Kurama chimed in, **"I don't know your meatbag of a father, but if enough of you worthless humans keep saying that one of you in particular isn't so worthless, it bears believing to some degree."**

Either way, if Kintetsu's tip on Minato's most recent activity was good Naruto would find out sooner rather than later if the man lived up to all of the hype.

XxX

(Some Time Later – Eastern Border of Kaze no Kuni – Border Village)

Villages that lay on the borders of the countries in the Elemental Nations might as well have been targets for outlaws. Not ninjas or samurai, or any sort of warrior belonging to any system. These types were the worst of the worst.

Some of them more so than others, for quite dark reasons.

As a single adult male figure walked through the modest wooden gates of a particular small settlement, he was instantly greeted with the sight of a town that had been thoroughly sacked. The smell of blood, of fires, of destruction still hung in the air. He could even see bloodstains marking the outside walls of homes.

Broken doors, broken windows. It wasn't looking good. Then he began to see that symbols of circles with upside-down triangles within them had been drawn in blood; on the walls, on the ground. Disgusting.

The man stood tall as he made his way about. Good-looking with wild, spiky blond hair and firm blue eyes. He wore blue trousers bandaged at the ankles down into black sandals and kept a closed, short-sleeved solid white haori over the long dark sleeves of his undershirt.

He was a very unassuming type. The kind of person you wouldn't spare a second glance at if you weren't looking for him in particular. There was a confident aloofness in everything he did, but the strength of his being laid beneath the surface.

If you heard his name, you would find it hard to consider for a moment that it was him until you paid attention to his shockingly golden hair. Then if you saw him in action you would never question his identity again.

Namikaze Minato, the Yellow Flash; one of the most dangerous men in the entire world, and widely recognized as the most powerful clanless ninja in existence.

A pensive look was fixed on his face as he took in his surroundings, "…Damn it. I didn't pick up the trail fast enough."

He had been in pursuit of a rather dangerous renegade element for over a week. It was a request that had originated in the northeastern portion of Hi no Kuni and moved wider and wider until the contract was eventually taken by him after it reached the borderlands of Kaze no Kuni.

These people were the absolute worst. Traveling around spreading a message of destruction _after _killing as many people as they could get their hands on and forcing others to join their ranks or suffer before dying. They were extremely grassroots, and because of their nature they never kept enough members to be a real threat to ninja clans, but because of that and because they never targeted ninja clan interests they were allowed to run amok.

This village was a prime example of why that was a horrible way to operate, and a weakness of the ninja system. When things of this nature were allowed to transpire, no one would do anything about it if it didn't have to do with their interests.

Rounding a corner he began to see corpses littering the streets and he let out a long quiet sigh as he continued to search the area. Instead of hiding or barricading themselves inside of their homes these people tried to run. They didn't make it far as he hadn't seen a single body that made it outside of the gates of the village.

These people weren't warriors or fighters of any kind. They were just regular people living in an out of the way town. Unfortunately this made them defenseless targets for the wandering cultists of the Jashin faith.

Coming to a fountain near the center of town, Minato saw a single ninja surrounded by over twenty bodies of the Jashin cultists. He knew that they were Jashinists due to their filthy cloaks stained with blood as if they were never cleaned off.

The nameless ninja's eyes remained open even in death, and the least Minato could do for now was close them for him. He had been the only one in the village that could defend himself, and he did what he could before being overwhelmed.

This was horrible.

Hearing the sounds of people in numbers, Minato took to the low-lying rooftops of the residences and moved over to the back end of the village where chanting was ringing out. Upon getting close enough, he concealed himself and bore witness to the sight of a post-kill ritual of the Jashinists, being led by a single man at the head of the pack, all of the hundred-plus followers looking to him for guidance.

He wore a pure red robe and had slicked back silver hair with purple eyes. The grin on his face was simply sickening, knowing that more than likely this was the person that was the ringleader of what had transpired here. Once again, Minato had to grit his teeth in stark acceptance that he hadn't been able to prevent this happening.

"Brothers!" The silver-haired priest sort of man shouted after concluding their prayers, or whatever they had been doing at the time, "Last night, did I fucking tell you or what? Under the doctrine of Jashin-sama there's nothing he rewards greater than the outright destruction of ignorant heathen scum like these! At this rate…" He held up his right hand with a strange triple-bladed scythe in his grasp, "…Every one of you loyal to the faith will be rewarded with power like mine."

Chattering sprang up from the robed Jashinists, their robes in all sorts of colors but all holding the same distinction of being splattered with blood, both new and old, "Brother Hidan!" One of them cried out, "When will we be ready?"

"That's up to me!" Hidan stated smugly, "Prove yourselves devout, and one day I'll share with you our religion's most treasured secret. The ritual that will bring you closest to Jashin-sama, so that our god may bestow upon you the ultimate reward for your dedication to slaughter."

All of them pulled small amulets with the symbol of their religion on them as Hidan did the same. His was larger, for emphasis that he was more important than they were.

"This world is about death brothers!" Hidan continued, "It's everywhere! Even with every advancement ninjas make, they're still rank amateurs at killing, so it's up to us to show them what real massacres are. It'll never be enough until we provide a world where Jashin-sama himself will see fit to descend and show everyone the true meaning of slaughter! Towns like this? Heh… it's not enough. One day, real towns, and eventually the ninja clans themselves. Show them all."

"I'm going to have to stop you right there," Minato said, letting his presence be known as he stood up from where he'd been listening, "I've seen and heard some sick things in my time. I've seen a lot of people fight for a lot of reasons, but I've never seen anyone where I could ever say that the world was a better place with them dead. Then I came across you."

Hidan just cackled wildly at the sight of more prey for his gathering, "You. You weren't here last night were you?" He asked rhetorically, "No. We cleaned this town out. Down to every man, woman, and child. So either you're a straggler that was out on a business trip, or you're just not from around here."

Turning around to face Minato, every Jashinist pulled out whatever potentially dangerous instrument they had on their person, ranging from crude kitchen knives to actual weapons such as short blades and clubs. None of them had the slightest bit of hesitation in their eyes, some actually grinning similarly to Hidan when it came to the prospect of killing him.

"Either way, you're just more meat on the table. Tear him apart!"

They all took five steps of their charge in Minato's general direction before he disappeared from the rooftop before their eyes. In a matter of five more seconds, Minato appeared at the backside of the pack holding a strange three-pronged kunai in his hand, the blade covered in blood.

The entirety of Hidan's cult fell to the ground spraying blood from their respective fatal wounds. Minato didn't flinch, turn back, or even blink as he flipped the odd weapon in his hand and caught it by the handle. He simply kept his eyes locked seriously on the ringleader in front of him.

"I didn't even see you move," Hidan said, thumping the back side of his triple-bladed scythe on his shoulder several times. As the blood from his deceased followers ran out onto the ground, Hidan didn't seem to regard their deaths as anything worth fretting over in the slightest, "Those clowns aren't fighters, but that was still impressive. I swear though… I think I know who you are from what you just did."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah," Hidan said, his grin slowly growing, "A man so fast that his every move looks like a flash, that stupidly bright yellow hair, working alone the way you are, yeah. You're Namikaze Minato aren't you?" When Minato didn't deny anything, Hidan laughed maniacally, "Oh fuck, you really are insane aren't you? The man that stole an S-rank ninjutsu from the Senju Clan!"

A deep scowl formed on Minato's face at being accused of any sort of thing from a man like Hidan. He was well aware of the rumor behind his obtaining the jutsu, because it had been spread by the Senju Clan themselves after he began to rise to prominence, but it was not the truth.

Traditionally, clanless ninjas received the bottom-barrel jobs of the shinobi world. Any client willing to pay large amounts of money for work would always shop their missions around to the clans in their area, making sure to balance price with quality. Even though clanless ninjas were always the cheapest, their quality was always the lowest.

If you were a clanless ninja you had to get used to working for the bare minimum to survive or hoping for a commission from the larger clans that needed extra bodies for certain reasons. Those were your two options or you otherwise learned a trade to support yourself.

For Minato, on a particular mission commissioned by the Senju Clan, it had suicide ramifications behind it, but being young and eager he accepted the recruitment for the mission, especially when he found out that instead of just receiving money he would be given a jutsu from the Senju Clan arsenal needed to complete the mission. It was the perfect carrot to bait young and dumb freelance ninjas into doing the dirty work of other clans.

The upfront payment was training for Hiraishin no Jutsu, and he and two others were taught the technique in something of a mini-camp seminar to give them an easy way out of a fortress protected by the Uchiha that they were requested to infiltrate and steal a state secret from.

Upon obtaining what they needed and using the technique to escape to the pre-marked extraction point by the Senju Clan they were ambushed upon arrival so that no witnesses were left from the mission and there were no outside learners of the Hiraishin.

Minato's two temporary teammates were killed in the ensuing trap, but Minato however was more than powerful enough to survive on his own and kill his attackers. While he wasn't given his post-mission payment due to the treachery, he was paid plenty in jutsu knowledge. Even if they only gave him the unfinished version that required three people to work, his genius and overall ability as a ninja hadn't been known at the time.

In a matter of years he managed to reverse-engineer the jutsu from what he already knew about it and made it his own. The Senju Clan hadn't bothered to learn who he was when he'd taken the mission. He was meant to die at the end of it. Thus when he surfaced years later gaining fame from using what was the jutsu of their Senju Tobirama, it was purported that he had stolen it.

That in of itself opened a gigantic can of worms in his life that he felt the ramifications of to that very day. There was more than just the reason of him being an outsider that kept him away from his wife and child in Uzu no Kuni. It was the Uzumaki Clan's close relationship with the Senju Clan. Their clan ties and working relationship that dictated that an enemy of the Senju was an enemy of the Uzumaki, and vice-versa.

But that was another story that he was intent on achieving his dream to fix one day.

Hidan swiftly attacked Minato with surprising ferocity. For someone that knew who he was, he certainly wasn't fighting as if he were wary of his reputation. Minato was more than fast enough however to avoid such a reckless assault and moved past one of Hidan's strikes before he even knew what hit him.

The silver-haired dark priest spit blood as a result of the five stab wounds he'd taken before Minato dodged him. Heart, liver, each lung, and left kidney, all punctured deeply by the awkwardly pointed knife in Minato's hand.

To his surprise however, Hidan simply growled. He didn't even drop to a knee. Turning his head, Minato jumped out of the way of the scythe sent his way in a ranged attack. Now he had two questions. Not only, how did he survive? But also why was he throwing his scythe?

As it flew past him, Minato found that it was attached to Hidan's body underneath the sleeve of his robe by a thick, lengthy cable. Again showing why he was the fastest man in existence, Minato ran up the length of the cable before Hidan could even blink at the feat and kicked him right underneath the chin hard enough to break his neck.

"GUK!" Hidan had been kicked hard enough for his head to dangle backwards off of his spine like an open Pez dispenser. Minato watched in morbid intrigue as Hidan pulled his head back into the correct position with a wet series of pops and cracks, "That Hiraishin no Jutsu (Flying Thunder God Jutsu) is really something."

Once again he faced Minato, still full of life after an attack that should have killed him, "Two things. First, what the hell?"

"It's a gift from Jashin-sama," Hidan declared, "Constantly coming up with new rituals to express my devotion to the only real God this world will know granted me this ability. Nothing you can do can kill me!"

"…Good to know," Minato commented before narrowing his eyes at his enemy, "Second, you're kind of wrong about something."

"What!?"

"I really haven't used Hiraishin once since I've gotten here. That was all me," Before he even finished his sentence, Minato appeared behind Hidan in an instant, in a yellow flash. A subtle movement of his hand moving down to his side as he reappeared. This time, Hidan's entire head popped off of his shoulders in a geyser of blood, "That was Hiraishin though. See the difference?"

At the outset of the fight after stabbing Hidan repeatedly, he'd set the marker that he needed to mark his area of teleportation for the jutsu. Hidan had been such a berserker that he'd never even noticed.

Most people that saw Hiraishin no Jutsu never really lived to spread the word on how it was used anyway, so it wasn't like he would have recognized what it was for if he had been paying attention.

As his body dropped limply to the ground and twitched wildly for a few seconds, Hidan's head just bounced off of the ground and rolled for a spell before coming to a stop.

"Yeah, you see the difference," Minato said, swiping the blood off of his Hiraishin kunai as he stooped down to pick up Hidan's head by the hair. After lifting him up though, he held him at arm's length when Hidan's facial muscles moved and he started snapping his teeth, "Whoa!"

"I'll rip your throat out you son of a bitch! Is that all you've got, decapitation? I'm immortal bitch! Your mother sucks di-!" Minato shut him up by hurling the head against the nearest wall he could see, effectively concussing Hidan and knocking him unconscious. For a holy man he had quite the mouth on him.

At least he had proof of mission success to give to his contractor, and Hidan by his own machinations wouldn't have death as an easy escape from what he'd done. Though he'd have to put a muzzle on him before he turned him in if he wanted to keep from punting him a hundred yards away every five minutes.

With a sigh, Minato kept Hidan's head with him as he began to do what he felt was his duty as the first responder on the scene. As far as he was concerned it was up to him that he put the people of this village to rest. No one else was going to do it if it wasn't him.

XxX

(Later That Evening – Western Kawa no Kuni)

Minato entered a bar in an extremely popular travel town with a weary look in his eye. He'd spent much of his afternoon after destroying the Jashin cult burying the citizens of the unfortunate village he'd located them in. With the other Jashinists he'd simply burned their bodies before warping back to the town of origin where his client lived.

The man gratefully paid and thanked him, even after receiving Hidan's still mumbling severed head. Minato didn't feel much for being thanked however. He'd seen his share of atrocities in his life, but at times it just got to be too much. You didn't get used to certain things, no matter how much time passed.

After changing his filthy clothes at the inn his longtime mentor had booked for him while he was on the job, Minato went to find the man himself. He wasn't very difficult to locate, even without a Hiraishin marker on his person. All he had to do was find the red light district in the bigger cities and locate the place with the most boisterous sounds of laughter coming from within.

"Bwa-ha! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!"

Yep, he was in the right place.

It didn't take him long after entering to find his mentor sitting in the middle of a corner booth with two women on each side of him, hanging off of him as he presumably paid for drinks and told them stories of a grandiose shinobi nature. That Jiraiya, always into civilian women.

Jiraiya was a bright man of middle-age, with long shaggy white hair in a long ponytail down his back, a wart on the side of nose, and red lines trailing down his face beneath his eyes. He wore a sleeveless red haori over a green long-sleeved kimono top and similarly colored pants, as well as a pair of wooden sandals, hand guards, and a horned headband with the kanji for 'oil' on it.

Walking up to the table, Minato set his hands down on it and leaned forward, bringing whatever Jiraiya's story had been to a close, "Thanks for all of the help sensei, really."

Jiraiya raised an eyebrow and easily noticed Minato's sarcasm. The man wasn't good at it, "Okay, aside from setting the beacon point at the inn to give you a quick trip here, would me going have made the fight you had any easier?"

There was no possible way that fight could have been any easier for Minato, "No."

"Then at most, all I would have done would have been to slow you down," Jiraiya reasoned before grinning at his pleasurable company, "This is the man I was telling you about. My pupil. The reflection of my greatness as a ninja. Bask in his greatness and know that it was I, the gallant Jiraiya, that laid the foundation that his castle in the sky was built upon."

The woman, whether it was because of the drinks or Jiraiya's way with words, giggled or swooned at his literary prose, while Minato just stared at him for several long seconds, "…How can you set a foundation for a castle in the sky?"

"Shut up Minato," Jiraiya muttered, hiding his displeasure behind a sip of alcohol, "So the mission?"

"You were right," Minato said with a sigh, pulling up a chair to the front of the table, "Taking you along probably would have slowed me down, but I wasn't exactly timely myself," Jiraiya cringed in understanding without having to say it and spook the ladies. He knew what the Jashinists were supposed to be all about, "It's times like those… I don't know. Between things like that and the way some clans take my ideas, I'm in over my head here I think. What kind of dream-?"

"None of that crap. You got to those Jashinists as fast as you could, and dwelling on it won't change anything. If you couldn't find them fast enough no one could have, Inuzukas included." Jiraiya cut him off effectively before he could get too far on his self-effacing tangent, "I didn't teach you basics of the life back when you were a ratty little kid because I thought it would be fun to corrupt a runt. I did it because I saw something in your eyes. You've always exceeded my expectations Minato, no matter how large the task."

"…I keep waffling back and forth on whether or not I'd ever want my son to meet you," Minato said, a small smile slowly spreading across his face, "There are times when you say things like that and you prove that you're the man I look up to, and then…" Without really saying it, Minato gestured to Jiraiya's drinking and fraternizing loosely with the fairer sex, "…Most of the time you're this guy."

"I work hard, I play hard," Jiraiya said, pulling his lady friends in closer to him for emphasis, "Besides, you never know when it'll all go to hell, we could all die any day, yadda-yadda, you know the drill. Basically the whole basic hedonism justification riot act that you _refuse_ to get into."

"Hey," Minato said, holding his hands up defensively, "I actually have a wife and a kid."

"Yeah, about this mystery woman of yours, I've never even seen her. A ring on a chain around your neck doesn't really mean much to me."

"When everything comes together one day and I can see her again Jiraiya-sensei, you will," Minato said, shaking his head with a smile, "I'll make sure of it."

XxX

(Some Time Later – Elsewhere – In the Skies)

Flying through the air on a large paper bird, the stoic blue-haired beauty controlled the direction of her origami creation while her partner rode farther back and navigated their way to their mutual interest point. Ever since picking him up it had been quite the effective teaming effort.

With the help of a special Senju Clan tracking ninjutsu meant to locate biju, they managed to pick up Naruto's trail after following the path of the rumors that had sent him west in the direction of the desert. From there it was all just a matter of following the jutsu to the nearest trace of a tailed beast.

Konan had to admit, as far as having partners forced upon her went, she could have done far worse than Tenzo. As far as their relationship as makeshift partners went, he was mostly quiet, never really trying to chat with her unless it had to do with their job of locating their target, and she rarely caught him ogling her form clad in her form-flattering dress.

If nothing else he was a complete professional.

Sporting short brown hair, Tenzo wore rusted brown plate armor with black pants and a black undershirt. He wore a forehead protector that framed the sides of his face and possessed a metal plate with the Senju Clan crest on his forehead. He was a younger man than her, significantly so at twenty-two years old, which made it particularly annoying when during the times he did speak to her about something non-mission related, it would always come back to the same question.

"Why is it that you're so loyal to Uzumaki Nagato?"

There it was again. He just kept beating that dead horse.

"I don't see how my loyalties to Nagato-sama matter to anyone else," Konan said, not even turning around to face Tenzo. Still, she knew that he sat behind her, holding his arm up with his palm facing outward, the symbol for a special sensing jutsu emblazoned on it as a green crystal necklace dangled from around his wrist and hand, pointing in a direction like the needle of a compass. His concentration was , "My actions on his behalf will ensure that the Senju Clan knows of his resolve on the partnership of your two clans. That's all you should care about."

"I just ask because you're not an Uzumaki Clan member. You're unaffiliated." Tenzo clarified, "It's odd, you understand that don't you? This is a delicate situation, and not really something that a clanless ninja would ever be involved in."

"I could ask you the same," Konan rebutted with a bit of ice in her tone at someone trying to dredge up her personal motivations, "It's common knowledge for those out in the world of who you are, Mokuton no Tenzo. It's closer guarded knowledge that you aren't a born child of the Senju Clan. Your origins to your clanship are rather shady reflection of your clan if they're to be believed, so why are _you_ so loyal?"

"Go ahead and say it," Tenzo declared firmly, "I'm not ashamed of who I am or what I came from."

"So it's true then? You're the end result of the merchant of death Orochimaru's experimentation on replicating the Mokuton bloodline," A distasteful look crossed Konan's face as she kept her back turned to fly the paper bird, "The rumors are that decades ago he was contracted by the Senju Clan to find a way to bring it about after it disappeared from their line. He used children for that. Over sixty."

Tenzo just chuckled in return, "The way you put it, you make it seem as if was such an atrocity."

"Sixty children, and only one survived. It seems like it was to me."

"Sixty children that didn't have a future anyway," Tenzo clarified, "Do you know how easy it is to abduct children? There are countless orphans in every country all over the Elemental Nations. No one cares about them. They're just byproducts of the fallout from the constant fighting. I figured that you of all people would know this better than most."

And she did. Bitterly, Konan had to admit that Tenzo had a point. She was older than him, so she knew it better. When you lost your family to the ravages of war, and you had no one else you were just background dressing to the rest of the world.

Tenzo elaborated further on his point, "Even if I was kidnapped, I was dead anyway. I know that. I didn't lose anything. Surviving it actually gave me something. When I showed signs of the Mokuton, I gained people in my life. Tsunade took me in personally, adopted me personally as family. The rest of the clan never saw me as anything lesser. They actually believed I was more Senju than they were because of my kekkei genkai. It doesn't matter if they were the reason that I suffered for a short time. What I got afterwards, it made up for all of it."

After hearing that, Konan figured that if anyone would understand why she was loyal to Nagato it would be Tenzo. The way he put it, his loyalty was due to finding something in the world that recognized him when he had nothing else. That wasn't too far removed from Konan's reasons.

At a time when there had been nothing else for her to do but struggle for herself to survive, she found someone that believed in her and helped her whenever she needed him. In harsher times for her, Nagato had been her symbol of hope that she strived to reach. Now that she was powerful enough to return the favor she would do so until he recognized just what she was willing to do to walk alongside him, as more than just his friend.

Feeling a bit of camaraderie between them after Tenzo's previous admission, Konan sighed and decided to give him something in return, "You might think it rather foolish, but you could refer to my reason of being loyal to Nagato-sama as unrequited love maybe?"

Tenzo raised an eyebrow curiously but remained silent. Why would anyone fail to return the affections from a woman like Konan? She was gorgeous. Most men on the face of the planet would risk putting themselves through hell if it meant obtaining the unconditional love from someone like her.

"I know that he doesn't feel the same way, no matter how wonderful he's been to me for years and years," Konan said, casting a misty gaze to the lands over the side of the paper bird, "He's always loved someone else. Someone else that already fell for another a long time ago," She laughed bitterly at that. What a vicious cycle it was, "I don't care about anything else. He's the only person I'll ever show my allegiance to."

"No one else?"

"I had someone else once... but he's gone now. And my sensei… he figured that he'd taught us enough and cut us loose," There was a stark melancholy to Konan's tone and in her eyes. Tenzo could see it even from the side view of her face that he had, "Do you see now? People in my life have died and simply left me behind. Nagato-sama is the only one that never has."

And for that man she would do something even as unsavory as taking the life of a child.

Tenzo didn't say anything else, simply indicating from that point forward the direction that they needed to go in per the crystal's instruction to locate said child.

XxX

(With Naruto – Western Kawa no Kuni – Twin Ridge Town)

Twin Ridge Town was perhaps the biggest town that Naruto had ever seen. It was quite the sight. Split into two sections across a spacious, scenic great river gorge, a large dam served as the primary bridge between the two sides.

Normally one would be hard-pressed to find a settlement of this size, even places under the control and protection of ninja clans, but Twin Ridge Town had several factors going for it that built upon one another and made it so.

Situated in Kawa no Kuni (Land of Rivers), it was a major stopping point for those going to and coming from the deserts of Kaze no Kuni due to the dam providing a convenient source of water for those needing to fill up their supply for their journeys. From that, a strong and thriving merchant spirit came to be, as more shops could be found here than anywhere else that Naruto had ever seen. He didn't even know why you would need twelve different places to go to shop for baked goods, but lo and behold, this town had that many.

The number of weapon stores, bookstores, inns and taverns, and other shops simply blew his mind. Apparently there was also something of a thriving red light district, but that was something that was not going to be touched upon… at least until he was significantly older.

With all of these things, it was also an epicenter of happenings. Since they were looking to get a bead on Minato's location, Kakashi deigned that this was the best place they were going to find relevant rumblings of the Yellow Flash's most recent whereabouts so he took off after giving the kids a means to quickly signal him if needed.

Needing to restock her supply of combat goods after quite the struggle in the desert, Tenten had been granted a shift off from watching the ramen cart to garner herself some replacement equipment. It was to be a quick errand and she'd eyed a nice ninja surplus shop en route to their stopping point.

In a nice overlook area where customers could also enjoy the view of the side of the ravine, Naruto sat off to the side keeping an eye on things as had become routine at this point. It was all just part of the job, and when that job meant watching over people he cared about, of which Ayame was included, he found the boring practice to be more tolerable.

He also had a new method of training that Kakashi had turned him onto that kept him busy while he kept watch. The practice of kunai-spinning; a chakra control exercise that required Naruto to first learn how to use his chakra to safely balance the point of a razor-sharp kunai in the palm of his hand before then learning the next step, which was to use his chakra to make it slowly rotate.

It was mundane and it hurt, but he didn't need to keep his eyes on it to focus on it. Kakashi had also assured him that if he wanted to learn a cool jutsu in the future he would practice this exercise.

It also added something to his presence while on guard duty. People were less inclined to make a ruckus or try something on an old man and a teenage girl running a ramen cart when you saw a kid with a look of focus staring right at you, spinning the point of a deadly weapon in his palm.

That was a plus, as being such a big social hub of a town and being unaffiliated with any ninja clan or samurai gathering it was also something of an outlaw outpost. Ninjas from all sorts of clans, roving samurai, monks, bounty hunters, and all sorts of other unsavory characters moved through constantly, making it a possible powder keg at any moment.

Deterrence was the best initiative to take in advance. When people saw that he was a ninja kid they found themselves less inclined to stir anything up. The thought of veritable child soldiers was a scary thought to many people not of a particularly combat-related background.

"Stop! Hey Naruto, a thief!"

Hearing Teuchi's call, Naruto noticed someone fleeing with a take-away container of ramen. Someone stealing ramen? On his watch? He didn't think so.

Grabbing the kunai in his grasp he flung it in front of the feet of the departing civilian thief, stopping him in his tracks long enough for another Naruto to appear from somewhere in hiding and snatch the container. He had eyes all over the place. It wasn't just the original sitting around by himself. Bidding the thief a glare that sent him skittering off empty-handed, the clone went right back to the shadows.

In actuality, another clone had gone off to corner the man and question him on why he had stolen. Apparently he had no money or place to stay in town. Damn his soft heart, but he let the guy go with a warning. He'd pay Teuchi for it himself later. One time only, and no one else saw him do it, so it was okay.

That little episode had done enough for those that saw the important part of Naruto being quick to respond to assert that he was a full-on ninja, and that the cart was not to be messed with. No more incidents occurred from that point forward for the next hour or so.

At that point a woman with a light blue paper rose in her hair that had been a patron of the cart moved over to him with her meal and took a seat by him. He had been paying attention to her more than most of the others in line for the last few minutes since she'd arrived because she was thoroughly beautiful. That by itself set off alarms and caused him to regard her warily, because why the hell would she go near him of all people?

"Hello little one," She said, giving him a small smile as she pried open the top to her meal and broke apart her chopsticks to eat. His terse stare didn't seem to make her uncomfortable in the slightest as she gracefully ate, eyes closed and slowly savoring her food.

A small kunai tucked in his hand, Naruto was ready to outright do what was needed just in case, but all this lady was doing was eating and having a seat. What was the right thing to do? Threatening to attack her was out because she wasn't doing anything and he wasn't a bastard, and telling her to leave? There were only so many places to sit at that particular overlook of the ravine, and it wasn't like he owned them all himself.

"I like the marks on your cheeks," The stoic woman said, pausing for a moment to speak to him, "They're cute."

"Uh… thank you?" Naruto didn't know quite how to respond to that other than idly scratching at his whisker-marks, suddenly feeling self-conscious about them, "I don't really think they're so great."

The last few days he'd spent in Uzu no Kuni he'd taken them as something of an indication that he was different, especially with the things he'd heard the other kids who didn't like him to begin with whispering about. Even after leaving he'd never been complimented on them before. Hell, the first sight of them had brought his mother to tears.

"They're special, and what they represent makes you special," The woman insisted, "Even amongst the rest of your clan, you're special Naruto. For better or worse," Upon dropping his name, she saw his eyes slowly widen in shock, "Yes, I know who you are. You've never met me, but I'm a close friend of your clan head and I've known your mother for quite some time as well. My name is Konan."

The casual admission that she knew what he was and who he was ate at his heart. There was a reason he'd been forced to run away from his clan after all. Involuntarily, Naruto gulped nervously, "Y-You were looking for me?"

"Mm-hmm," Konan nodded to him, "I can honestly tell you that she misses you greatly. First your father was forced to leave and then you were taken, ripped right out of her arms. She tries to be brave, but I understand. Even so, you do know why it's dangerous to let a jinchuuriki roam don't you? Especially one attached to the Uzumaki Clan."

Having seen what Shukaku could do and being told that he hadn't even been taking things seriously during that deadly night in Kaze no Kuni, yes, he could imagine what others would think of a human being that held that much power inside of their body.

The people meant to police that sort of thing and widely accepted as the sealing masters of the ninja world, the Uzumaki Clan, possessing a living jinchuuriki reeked of hypocrisy to every other clan in existence. This needed to be contained before Naruto wound up showing a sign of being a jinchuuriki that couldn't be ignored as just a paranoid rumor as he roamed the world.

"It was the masked man that did this."

"The masked man that had no defining features other than his attire? The one that disappeared in and out of your clan's domain without a trace despite its sensors and patrollers? The one that's more ghost than man," She shook her head sadly, "A man with no identity is a weak culprit to pitch. Even if it's true, the biju still has to come out of you regardless, for your clan's peace of mind. They'll be the ones to suffer the repercussions of your existence if you don't."

There was no hiding that he was one, especially from the Senju Clan. As Tenzo had demonstrated at the tail end of tracking him down after they'd gotten close enough for the jutsu to pick him up, even inside of a human, with the right technique you could pick a jinchuuriki out with the appropriate technique.

"I'll get him out myself."

Hearing Naruto mumble to himself, Konan looked down at him and saw him staring at the ground and holding his stomach tightly, "What was that?"

"I'll get him out myself," The boy was dead serious and looked her in the eye to express such, "I didn't do anything wrong, and I'm just supposed to let you take me back and suck all of the life out of my body?" He asked gravely, "Have there ever been any others before me?" There had to have been if his clan had a procedure in place for dealing with him.

"Yes. Throughout history there have been three other attempts that were all caught onto. They all had their biju extracted as well," Knowing what he was going to ask, Konan simply decided to cut to the heart of it, "…None of them ever survived the process. But then again, I don't have to extract it from you."

"You don't?"

"No. There's another way. It's faster and won't hurt as much."

A sharp blade formed from folded sheets of paper around Konan's arm as she simultaneously thrust it forward at Naruto, quickly enough to run him through quietly before he even knew what hit him. The look of terror on his face when he realized that he'd been stabbed. Her eyes didn't show the slightest change of emotion from how she'd been talking to him beforehand.

Those eyes did express quite a bit of surprise when Naruto dispelled in a puff of smoke from his fatal wound. The moment he popped, Teuchi's normally closed eyes opened up and he quickly closed up shop, pulling down the metal screen and locking everything down.

Having not been present for Naruto's quick handling of the thief situation, Konan had not picked up that Naruto had a solid clone jutsu in his arsenal.

By now after using clones for as long as he had, Naruto had figured that even though he was guarding the cart there was always a chance that someone could get the drop on him and attack him. Thus he alternated sitting in closest to the cart personally and using clones to do it while he watched elsewhere from afar like the rest of his clones. It was safer to mix it up, keep people that might have been watching him guessing, and when the clone dispelled he realized what was happening anyway.

It also made counterattacks that much more satisfying when all of his clones received the memory and swarmed on the threat against him at once while the attacker was still befuddled. Naruto's clones didn't miss a beat, launching themselves out of the town woodwork, up to eighteen of them, all targeting Konan before she even stood up.

Converging on her all at once, kunai drawn, they stabbed her at once. As distasteful as he found attacking someone ruthlessly, she started it. He'd never forget the heartless look she gave him as she ran his clone through, thinking it was him. He got it once again when his clones got her and didn't see any blood or even any indication on her face that she had been injured.

In the areas where she'd been stabbed, Konan's body and clothing seemed to lose its coloring and consistency, appearing more like paper than actual flesh and fabric. A faint sizzling sound came from within, causing a particularly savvy clone to go wide-eyed at the thought of the sound. It was too late however for them as the explosive tag buried in the Paper Clone exploded and destroyed them all.

From her place standing atop one of the many closely crowded buildings, Konan passively observed the fireball that her substituted clone created, "He knows a high-level technique like that? Damn you Kushina."

She didn't have to wonder where he was for very long, as she bore witness to a loud crackling bolt of lightning being shot directly into the air. Narrowing her eyes she formed a set of paper wings and flew swiftly over to the location where she found Naruto holding a moderately-sized bamboo tube.

Staring up at the woman hovering in front of him with an owlish look on his face, Naruto didn't move a muscle, as if he were facing down some sort of predator that would attack him if he made any sudden motions.

Konan stared him down and realized that the tool he'd just used was intended fired off a signal that could be seen and heard from far away. A double-edged sword of sorts, since while those with him would know something was wrong upon seeing it, she could find him as well.

Then she stopped to think about it.

"You're not the real one are you?"

Naruto pursed his lips and thought about it, tilting his head while thinking about how to correctly answer that question, "…Yes. I am the real one, because that's the answer that'll make you stay here the longest and let the real me actually find a place to hide."

Konan was unamused by his attempt to be cute, instead using her chakra to force sheets of her paper to swarm around her body. In response, Naruto just slammed the bottom end of the bamboo tube onto the ground, shooting another bolt of lightning up into the air with a booming crackle just as Konan tore him to shreds with paper shuriken.

Someone like Kushina _would_ have taught her own son something as annoying as Shadow Clone Jutsu after he'd gained the chakra to freely abuse it.

Such was the trademark of Konan's life; impossibly bad luck.

XxX

With the real Naruto, by then he had gotten as far away as he could by the time he felt his diversion/signal clone die off and proceeded to drop to the street via an alley. Before walking out amongst the general population he utilized Henge to change his form to that of a nondescript, regular, everyday town ragamuffin. Hiding in plain sight as it were.

Silver lining: whoever this Konan lady was, she happened to be after him and him alone.

Man, chakra could make anything dangerous couldn't it? She killed his clones with paper.

'Wait, what the hell am I running for?' Naruto thought to himself from the back of his mind as he continued to blend in with the foot traffic of the town, 'I fought a biju! You're not allowed to run again after you do something like that!'

He quickly shook himself of those thoughts. Being constantly exposed to Kurama's proud mindset that made him constantly talk himself up and reference his greatness was beginning to rub off onto Naruto. By now, after dealing with Kakashi, Pakura, Kintetsu, and other ninjas he'd met that outclassed him on the battlefield he could tell when he was out of his league.

Fortunately, from how she'd carried herself at the cart she wasn't willing to include innocents in her endeavor to take him out. She could have attacked his main clone from afar with that nasty razor-sharp paper barrage and had a good chance to take it out without getting close to him, but didn't do so. Nor did she try to include the cart in her attack whatsoever.

With the blinders of the townsfolk to mask his movements, Naruto eventually reached the weapons surplus store where Tenten had gone off to. If nothing else it would get him off the street for a bit. If Kakashi couldn't find him he'd look for Tenten next, and that was where the older ninja would find him in this case.

If he saw and/or heard the two signals hopefully.

Upon entering the large shop, he saw his bun-haired partner apparently haggling with the owner for three different crates of supplies, and apparently not faring to well in her attempt to barter with a businessman.

"I don't care kid," The grown store owner said, shaking his head in exasperation, "You can keep pulling out all of the blueprints you want, it's not cash."

"But you can make these and get them mass-produced yourself!" Tenten tried to reason, "Look, the Chain Wind Staff is a great specialty melee weapon, the Injection Shot is a great long-range stealth weapon-," That she hadn't really finished designing yet, "-And the Lightning Barrel is a great support tool. I've got more. There's got to be something I've got worth all of these supplies."

Upon seeing some of the designs, the shopkeep frowned, "Kid, the second thing, it's just a signal. I might as well use a flare. I sell flares already."

"And what about when you run out of flare shells and gunpowder, what then? This just needs some of your chakra to work and someone to set the base charge at the bottom of the barrel. Then it's good until you break it somehow," Putting on her best smile, Tenten tried to keep selling her invention, "They're handmade and the interior is lined with-."

"I don't buy blueprints from kids. Sorry. I can't trust these things, even if you demonstrated one prototype that just so happens to work."

"That's so ageist! I put just as much research into-!" Tenten found her hand grabbed by some strange town boy who was surprisingly strong. Strong enough to drag her outside where she quickly freed herself from his grasp, "What's your problem kid?"

"Tenten," Transformed Naruto said, "Just act cool and come with me."

"Naruto?" After getting a nod from her transformed partner she forgot all about trying to get her foot as a weapons designer in the door somewhere and put her blueprints away as she began to follow him, "Why are you in a Henge? And why aren't you with the cart?"

"Somebody's trying to kill me," Naruto summarized, "And I didn't leave it alone. After I figured I ditched the lady chasing me I made a few more clones to double back and watch over things there just in case."

"Why is anyone after you anyway? You're just a cart's bodyguard," Tenten didn't understand it.

If he left and the person attacking him still targeted him, he had to have something that they wanted. Aside from that, only bandits, other thugs, and low-class ninjas hard up for some kind of money would attack a food stand to begin with, and Naruto could and had easily handled those types almost every day.

For someone to actually make him retreat in a fight, they had to be pretty damn good.

"It's probably better for you that you don't know why he has people after him," A shadow was cast from above the two of them that covered the two young ninjas, "I'd understand why he wouldn't tell anyone he didn't have to, but you can't hide certain things from the world Naruto-san."

Both looked up to see a man in Senju Clan styled plate armor, holding up a green crystal necklace that glowed and pointed at Naruto. By now, the streets up and down the block had begun to clear, as there were enough fights on the streets for people to know that the best course of action was to get indoors or behind something sturdy when the killing intent began to fly.

"I thought a _woman_ was chasing you." Tenten asked as they looked up at the man before them, "What's going on?"

"There was," Naruto replied before hesitating on the second question, "…And, I don't really know how to tell you what's going on." His eyes shot her way for an instant with guilt in them before he looked back up and noticed their assailant forming a hand-seal, "Crap!"

"Doton: Doryuusou (Earth Release: Earth Flow Spears)!"

Naruto tackled Tenten out of the way just as several spears of rock emerged from the ground in an attempt to skewer them both. By then, Tenten realized that the man above them was a real-deal Senju Clan ninja. A member of the most powerful clan in existence. Her body began to shake as if she were about to face Shukaku all over again before realizing that this was just a man. A single man.

The attack had caused him to lose his concentration and drop his Henge, leaving no doubt to the man before them that he was indeed the genuine article, "You gave Konan-san the runaround. Unfortunately she isn't much of a sensor, so she got caught on a goose chase with your clones for a bit before I asked her to cover your only real out while I did this myself. My abilities are better for taking on jinchuuriki than hers."

Naruto's teeth clenched tightly at that word being brought up in front of Tenten who didn't have a definition to put with the strange term, "Power of human sacrifice? What?"

"She really doesn't know?" The man asked rhetorically before dropping down from the rooftop onto the street, "Like I said, I don't blame you for not advertising it. Nothing personal kid, but you should tell her to leave. There's no need for me to take down two kids, but I've got no problems getting as violent as I need to."

Still on the ground from being saved by Naruto, Tenten still had a Lightning Barrel in her hand and winked at Naruto as he started to get off of her. This time when his body concealed most of hers from view, she turned the barrel upside-down on the ground with enough of the opening tilted in the direction of their enemy.

Shoving Naruto out of the trajectory of her move, Tenten hammered down on the back end of the signaling beacon tool and shot a quick stream of lightning out along the ground the Senju man's way.

She could use that thing for more than signaling others? Maybe she was a great inventor after all?

Being forced to dodge by sticking himself to a wall, the Senju man grunted at being faced with such a strange weapon. He'd never seen that before. He was then faced with a Naruto who had allowed Tenten's shove to propel him closer to his position. Blocking the punch of the boy who had launched himself through the air at him, he dispelled the clone to get a face full of smoke. Dropping down from his place on the wall, his timing was good to avoid several shuriken thrown by Tenten once the clone had been dispelled.

Well that was alright too. If both were going to fight him he might as well make sure that they weren't going to go anywhere.

"Mokuton: Jukai Heki (Wood Release: World of Trees Wall)!"

Countless wooden branches grew from nothing, spanning the width of the street as they wove together and formed a high, effective barricade directly behind Naruto and Tenten's position. They even formed on the rooftops, continuing the straight line and cutting off anything on either side from the other.

The tight-knit setup of those branches and how quickly they came up gave Naruto pause. Those were trees. Trees that had come up from the ground where weeds couldn't even grow from. Trees that had grown from the rooftops of buildings.

"**No… Mokuton."**

'Kurama?'

"…**This… is not good."**

"My name is Tenzo," The man said, giving a ghost of an apologetic smile to Tenten, but especially Naruto, "For what it's worth, I'm sorry about this Uzumaki Naruto."

* * *

Omake: New Friends 1 (Kaze no Kuni)

"Hey, have you ever thought about using puppets?"

On the long walk back from the desert battlefield to the village, Tenten's head perked up at the rather innocuous question from Kankuro. Even Naruto and Temari looked his way in interest, as after gathering the deceased and trudging over the early morning sands they needed something to take their minds off of it all.

After being presented with the scenario, Tenten had to actually give it thought, "You think I could?"

"I really don't see why you couldn't," Kankuro replied, showing her the odd puppet on his back that he'd used during the battle, "This is my 'Crow' puppet," Naruto snickered at a crow reference after traveling for so long with a 'scarecrow', but it went over everyone else's head, "You can't have him or look at his designs. You can make your own after you get good enough."

Looking a bit put out after learning that she wouldn't get a new toy to tinker around with, Tenten frowned but nodded. She wouldn't hand off plans of her own designs for nothing either, "So when did you make that thing?"

"Oh, I didn't make him. He was passed down to me," Kankuro caught himself a glare from Tenten for that, as he didn't even make it himself and was being stingy about coughing up a quick look at the designs, "I do upgrades all the time though. Yeah, a lot of technical work goes into maintaining these guys. A lot of work. You can do it after you learn how to use Chakra Strings."

Honestly, Tenten could see the merits of learning how to use Chakra Strings even if she never even used a single puppet, and she already made weapons for fun, so making puppets was probably a more "Hmm… I don't know,"

Because she really didn't care about puppets. At all. They were a creepy kind of intimidating from the looks of Crow. If she was going to intimidate someone she preferred the look of fear because of cold, hard, steel. That was the ticket.

"Are you actually gonna teach her the Chakra String thing, or are you gonna tease her by just talking about 'em too?" Naruto asked, hands up behind his neck with a thoughtful squint on his face, "Hey, wouldn't learning how to make puppets take a bunch of years to even be good enough to suck at?"

"Shut up runt!" That was why Kankuro hated kids. At this rate Naruto would wind up punching holes in his attempt to pass on the greatness of puppet-related combat.

"What'd I say?" Naruto asked, raising an eyebrow without opening his eyes. He was calling things as he saw them, "I'm just saying, because the only reason most of my clan are really good at seals is because we're stuck learning about 'em right around the time we start learning kanji. Puppets seem like one of those things you've got to put in a ton of time and focus on."

Naruto wasn't a complete rube. He was astute in quite a few situations actually. As someone that wasn't too shabby at seals but still had a lot left to be desired in that department before he would ever dream about screwing around with biju-related things, Naruto was somewhat aware of when a particular facet of the shinobi arts would take more work than people necessarily had the time to put in for those not necessarily looking to master it.

If you had to make your own puppet or get one passed down to you just to get your own you probably had to know all about the mechanisms and everything that went into just making them move. Not to mention everything else. The way Kankuro had been talking, it was like it was something he could teach her while they were still around and then within a few weeks of practice on her own she could use them like him. That clearly wasn't the case.

Besides, Tenten's penchant for weaponry was more related to the things that she had to hold in her hands to use. The feeling of ninja tools on her skin, the weight of a blade, staff, or whatever in her hands gave her a sense of security and comfort. She probably wouldn't like puppets anyway since holding them wouldn't let her use them.

With a smirk, Temari began punching holes into Kankuro's attempted conversion of Tenten further, "You've got that one more on the nose than you think. Kankuro had to spend so much time with just Crow to learn what he needed just to fight with it that he started talking to it like a person."

"Temari!" The affronted puppeteer shouted at his grinning elder sister.

"You do," The fan-wielding girl pointed out, getting a kick out of embarrassing him, "You even do play-by-play of what you're doing when you're working with it, and you act like you're doing surgery on a patient when you give it upgrades. Crow's just one of them. I'd hate to see what you're like by the time you're good enough with the other two you have to use them in fights."

"I don't want to use puppets anymore," Tenten deadpanned instantly, "Not my thing." The fact that there was a chance that they would affect her mental state in such a manner just drove that point home further.

"I… I understand," Once she gave him the big 'no', Kankuro knew there was no way he was going to be able push it on her after that. Puppets kind of had that effect on those that didn't want to use them.

"I still want to learn those Chakra Strings though if you don't mind," Tenten clarified, "The idea of that seems really cool to me. I could probably do a lot of stuff with that."

"Okay," Kankuro said, dejected at not converting a ninja to the side of the puppet-user, "…Those are pretty basic to teach. It's control-heavy but basic. You look like you have good control, so just make sure you practice." Tenten nodded in return.

With that, Temari eyed Naruto suspiciously, "I'm not going to teach you how to use fans."

Opening a single eye at her, Naruto gave her a bit of an objectionable look, "I don't need a fan to use my jutsu," He reasoned with a sniff, "Besides… fans are kind of girly."

"You sure you don't want to take that back?" Temari offered, no venom in her tone. It was more like warning actually, and not one that meant she was the one that was about to do something.

Why though? She was a girl, and Naruto would say that despite how heavy that damn thing probably was, when she swung it she looked extremely feminine. Thus the fan was a girly weapon. He was ten, it was that simple, thus he was going to say it.

"No, I meant what I said," Naruto said before realizing that several other fan users walking back nearby were now eyeing him angrily. They were all men, "…Meant it in the most macho way possible. Seriously, I love you guys. Fans saved my ass. Did I thank all of you for that before? I could have sworn I did-."

"-Yeah, stop talking now," Temari told him, knocking him slightly on the head to shut him up. She sighed to herself as they continued onward, "…Definitely not as cool as Minato-sama."

* * *

**Yeah, this is the first of a double-posting. I thought I could get what I wanted down in one chapter, but I have a habit (good or bad depending on personal reader preference) of writing a lot in chapters, and I can't stop until I get the point I'm trying to convey across, so this is the result. I do too much and have to split it in two, and then I don't feel content until I finish the second one.**

**I think I have a mild case of OCD, because to give an example I need my change to be in perfectly symmetrical stacks and I am willing to physically attack people (brother) that purposely disrupt them. **

**I don't know why that pisses me off more than most anything else. I participate in a sport that sees me get punched, kicked, and my limbs contorted in harmful positions just for the love of the game. Not only that, but I constantly write stories that I post on the internet where I can and have been casually slandered at will in reviews by people I'll never meet.**

…**When you think about that, having the sanctity of my change disturbed is kind of a lame sore point to have.**

**Kenchi out.**


	9. Gone In a Flash

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. I call upon the respective spirits of Tommy Vercetti, Carl Johnson, and Niko Bellic to fill my soul and inspire me to come up with a brilliant criminal act that will allow me to obtain the coveted licenses for the Naruto franchise.

*Second chapter of a double post. I can't help myself sometimes.*

* * *

_I can honestly see how so many of the people I've met in my life are or were obsessed with power. It's disturbing, because I came really close to being like that time after time. I saw lots of people I loved die or get hurt. I had people that I grew to like have injustices heaped upon them because they weren't able to fix things on their own._

_To be helpless, a bystander, to be able to do nothing else other than to be a victim or hope that someone else with the ability to change things does something in your favor, it's infuriating. I can only imagine how many friends and loved ones some people have seen die in front of them in a battle. Even worse, is actually being in the position to do something to help, but just not being strong enough to matter. _

_When you're a liability, and you know that you are, it hurts._

_When you've spent the better part of your childhood being prepared to step onto a battlefield if need be, and then you find out that you're nowhere near ready for just what a _real_ battle with _real_ hardened ninjas can throw at you, it's a bit of a cold slap across the face._

_In my case, because of what happened to me I was a primary reason for a lot of the bad things that happened to the people I cared about. Back then, I couldn't do anything. At the time I always thought that when push came to shove, if it really mattered, if the chips were really down, I could always win some way, somehow. I was a stupid kid like that. You see, I didn't realize just how disgustingly powerful some people were. You never imagine just what some people are capable of until you actually see the limits of what human beings by themselves can truly do._

_People were afraid of jinchuuriki, because inside of them they had the power of the biju. No. That's not much to really be afraid of, because that's not really our power. The scariest thing to people never should have been jinchuuriki. _

_The scariest thing was when I ran into people that were so powerful that being a jinchuuriki didn't even matter to them, even after I figured out how to make that work out for me. My dad was a straight-up human. No kekkei genkai, no massive power sealed in him, and right up until his end I always felt like he was stronger than me. And that's exactly my point._

_Even if I could draw from a source of chakra like Kurama, it didn't matter. For a long time there were still some people in the world that terrified me, and for the longest time I still didn't even know exactly what they could do._

_Uzumaki Naruto – 'End of Clan War Era Memoirs'_

**Chapter 9: Gone In a Flash**

* * *

Kurama was wary of his opponent? That never happened. No matter how big the bandits were, he usually just told Naruto to hurry up and beat them so he could go back to sleep. Even against Neji and Sasuke, he didn't really seem to care, and those guys had been tough!

Yeah, this guy was a grown-up ninja, but the gap between them wasn't _that_ significant, was it? After all, Tenten was there too, so it was two-on-one. But it seemed to be more of a matter of the jutsu that the Senju Clan man used more than anything else.

That was one hell of a wooden wall. Testing it, he drew a kunai and stabbed into it. The tip barely pierced the surface of the thick fortification even with the force he'd done it with, 'He made these trees come up from nothing. That's not right.'

"**It's my second most abhorred kekkei genkai that you blasted humans have come up with,"** Kurama declared with a growl, **"Right behind Sharingan, then there's the Mokuton, which gives the user the ability to create and manipulate plants. Where the Sharingan can bind a biju mentally, Mokuton can bind a biju physically."**

'Bullshit.'

"**I never kid about the biju," **Kurama repeated from their encounter with Shukaku, **"If I say it you'd damn sure better believe it."**

Realizing that through his entire mental conversation he hadn't been interrupted with a lethal blow to a vital area, Naruto turned around to face the man that had confronted them. Tenten though, asked the obvious question, "You didn't attack while Naruto's back was turned?"

"Naruto-san here isn't a bad little ninja to get away from _that woman_. For some reason Konan-san has an actual bone to pick with him," Tenzo said with an apologetic look on his face, "I don't though. This isn't something that I want to do, and the last thing I'd want is for you to see it happen or be involved. I have a heart you know."

Yeah right. If he had a heart he wouldn't be trying to kill him just for existing as a jinchuuriki.

"Then you wouldn't be doin' this at all!" Naruto said, calling him out on his excuse-making, his accent breaking in his frustration, "I'm tired of telling people… everybody in the village, and now people like you and the Konan bitch that this isn't anything I did! And I'm not gonna roll over and die just 'cause you don't wanna wait on me to fix this myself!"

Once more, Tenten furrowed her brow, not knowing what he was referring to in the slightest.

Tenzo sighed and tried to appeal to Tenten's base sense of reason, "Listen, if you stay out of the way and let me deal with Naruto-san I won't hurt you. I'm being nice. Konan-san wouldn't have cared. She would have killed you right along with him without giving you a chance because it would have saved more time."

Trying to protect the girl that had no stake in this was the reason that Tenzo demanded that Konan allow him to handle things himself. But if she got in the way he would break her as much as he needed to in order to complete his task.

As Naruto's back heel bounced impatiently off of the ground he seethed to himself. That was fair, even if it basically sealed his fate with fighting alone against someone that gave even Kurama pause. But before he could even say anything prompting Tenten to leave this alone, she threw a kunai straight at Tenzo that he caught between his index and middle fingers.

Naruto wanted to ask why she would do something like that when she had an out, when they hadn't been friends for that long in the grand scheme of things, but there was no time. That was the last straw to keep things from getting out of hand, and his legs carried him forward to get her front, per their team dynamic.

Tenzo flipped the kunai and hurled it back at Naruto's head getting the diminutive ninja to duck it without his stride being broken. As he leaned back up, Naruto's arms were concealed in a puff of smoke from the scroll he had in his pocket, allowing him to unseal a fuuma shuriken. Only unfolding two blades of it, Naruto dangerously threw it at Tenzo.

'That thing's not aerodynamic enough to hit me with only two blades open.' It passed right by him, but to his surprise it curved back around and he noticed a glowing blue string on his shoulder that led back to Tenten, 'No way!'

Back with Tenten she had a Chakra Strings from her fingers attached to Naruto's shuriken, allowing her to guide it herself with her fingers. The wire would strangle Tenzo's neck when it wrapped back around and would make him an easy target on its second pass, but he avoided the blade, ducking underneath it and forcing it to plant into the wall before the bit of subterfuge was complete.

Thrusting his arm out at the still advancing Naruto, Tenzo had a little surprise for him, "Mokuton: Daijurin no Jutsu (Wood Release: Great Forest Jutsu)!"

"**Brat, move!"**

"Naruto, substitute!"

A look of shock appeared in Naruto's eyes as he was speared with wooden spears that formed and branched out from Tenzo's arm. In a puff of smoke, instead of Naruto it wound up being a large target dummy that was skewered in his place. That damnable girl had unsealed a countermeasure to let Naruto escape a sure-death scenario.

Almost two months of training and constant teamwork made that type of communication work so sublimely. It was clear that Tenten was the distance support to Naruto's more direct up-close approach. She might have saved Naruto, but that did nothing to stop Tenzo's attack from continuing onward, forking into several more skewers that went after her.

With a gasp, Tenten cringed and flinched as she assumed her impalement was imminent, but all Tenzo did to her was pin her against the wooden wall with not an inch of space to move. She could feel her heart hammering in her chest when she saw Tenzo break off the tree attachment of his arm so that he could focus back on Naruto, 'Damn it!' "Naruto!"

"I'll get you out!" Naruto promised, wincing as he felt several more clones he'd made meet their end by Tenzo's hand, "Just hold on for a bit!" Any attempt to use his swarming style of taijutsu in tandem with his clones he tried failed. On this occasion however, he took a hard punch to the face that staggered him back while his clones kept coming.

"Don't!" Tenten grunted, stuck against the wooden wall in an awkward position that caused her to wince with every attempt she made to move, "Just… don't die!" There had to be something she could do to get out, but she couldn't even move her hands enough to make a hand-seal, let alone reach any of her ninja tools, "Please don't die!"

She could barely move her fingers around to manipulate the Chakra Strings that Kankuro had clued her in on back in the desert, but she wasn't that good with them after only a few days. She needed more direct movements of her hands to get them to work for now, and her arm was stuck right down to the wrist.

After disposing of more of Naruto's clones with his melee Mokuton techniques, Tenzo turned to Naruto and shook out his wrist, "I told you I wouldn't kill her if I didn't have to. Killing kids isn't my thing. That just leaves you and me-." He had to give Naruto credit when he came at him again before he even finished his statement, "Alright."

Naruto charged at Tenzo with a look of focus on his face, 'If this is it… I might as well go hard,' With a hard tug of his right arm, Naruto's kunai flew out of the wooden wall, getting a scared eep out of Tenten who hadn't noticed that there'd been ninja wire tied to the ring the entire time.

The weapon flew forward through the air, past Naruto and at Tenzo who loaded up his legs to prepare a dodge and a counter that would kill the boy quickly to spare him pain. His timing was disrupted horribly when the kunai got something of a speed and power boost.

"Fuuton: Repuushou (Wind Release: Gale Palm)!"

Tenzo moved his head directly out of the way of the weapon that would have brained him otherwise and turned his head back forward to grab Naruto's forearm as he tried to clean his clock with a punch. Trying to throw the boy to the ground, Naruto posted himself upside-down with his other hand and in a stroke of inspiration put the kunai-spinning exercise into practice, allowing him to twist and smash Tenzo with a whirling kick.

Blocking the surprise taijutsu and stopping Naruto cold, Tenzo swung his leg around and kicked Naruto as hard as he could, sending him flying into the front wall of one of the buildings lining the street. Facedown on the ground, Naruto spit out blood, twitching and quivering for a few moments.

That hurt. That hurt like hell. He'd never been hit that hard in his entire life, in training with Kakashi and Kushina, in spars with Neji and Tenten, in a real fight with the Uchiha Clan. Never. He felt that if someone had been watching they could have seen the impression of Tenzo's sandal through his back.

Sighing at having to resort to hitting a child that hard to make him stop, Tenzo began to walk over to Naruto to continue, "I'm not going to stop."

'So…' Naruto thought to himself, grabbing a fistful of dirt as he tried to push himself up, 'This is what fighting Kakashi would be like if he wasn't holding back all of the time? It sucks.'

"**Get **_**up**_** Naruto."**

"I know…" On his knees, back turned to Tenzo as he rose up, Naruto started subtly making hand-seals, trying to hide them as his enemy drew closer, 'Come on mom, help me out here. Ne, Ushi, Inu, Inu, I!' Clapping his hands, he then slammed one hand on the ground with a sealing array appearing right beneath it.

Tenzo's eyes went wide at the sight of the array and the almost instant extension of the jutsu's formation right beneath him, a copy of the smaller array underneath Naruto's hand, "Uzumaki Clan binding Fuuinjutsu. Well I'll be damned."

It worked. He couldn't exit the circumference of the array after he'd found himself caught within it until Naruto lifted his hand up off of the ground. If his chakra had been significantly more powerful than Naruto's he could have broken it, but Naruto's clan was noted for its potent chakra and sealing knowledge, therefore it would be a tall task for someone else without both of those factors to break it.

"I forgot you were an Uzumaki," Tenzo admitted with a chuckle, "You really don't look like one I've got to say. You proved that though. I can't get out of this."

Wiping his nose clear of the blood from Tenzo's earlier punch to the face, Naruto sat down cross-legged on the ground, making sure to keep his right hand planted flat on the ground to maintain the seal, "Heh… gotcha. If Tenten wasn't stuck, this would be the time where she finished you off with enough sharp metal to start a scrap yard."

Tenzo genuinely applauded the effort. He had been caught. It was at that point that the clapping sounded off to Naruto, as if it weren't flesh and bone clapping. Before his eyes, Tenzo's body took on the appearance of wood.

A clone. All of that work, and it had been a clone they'd been taking on. One clone.

From the wooden wall that Tenten was pinned to, Tenzo's body emerged from it as if he had been a part of it the entire time. Without saying a word, the look in his eye was that of dead seriousness. Three hand-seals later, in his right hand he formed a spiral of water in the center of his palm that he fired right at Naruto, "Suiton: Hahonryuu (Water Release: Tearing Torrent)!"

"Doton: Doryuuheki (Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall)!"

As the ripping bolt of water tore across the ground at Naruto, a wall rose in front of him, decorated with four bulldog sculptures, protecting him from the attack before he could get back up.

Tenzo's attention attracted by the wall, he didn't notice until after the fact that Tenten was gone from where she'd been stuck until right then. A panging sense of self-preservation forced him to fire up his chakra and protect himself, "Mokuton: Mokujouheki (Wood Release: Wood Locking Wall)!"

A large fireball set the wooden half-dome that rose from the ground ablaze. As it burned down to the ground, Tenzo surfaces from underneath the ground, glaring up at the perpetrator of the attack. It took him all of two seconds to identify the man at first glance, "Hatake Kakashi, the Copy Ninja."

"Tenzo of the Mokuton," Kakashi said, standing from atop the defensive wall he'd raised to protect Naruto previously, "I'm saying that because of all of the wood, obviously."

"Obviously," Tenzo deadpanned, "…Since the girl's gone, I'm assuming that Naruto-san isn't behind that wall any longer."

"Of course he isn't." Kakashi confirmed brightly, "Do you know how hard it was to track that boy down after he signaled for me? I tried to peg him by scent. Not the best idea when he split off his clones all over Twin Ridge Town to throw people off."

"I'll just find him later after I'm through here. He fought like his life was on the line, but that won't be enough," Tenzo assured him, "I was making him fight my clone to wait for him to tap into his biju powers, but he never did. Which one does he have?"

Instead of directly answering that question, Kakashi gave him what appeared to be an amicable smile behind his facemask as he revealed his normally concealed eye. He wasn't about to take it easy on one of the most powerful Senju Clan members of the modern era,

Slowly, he drew his White Light Chakra Saber from his back with masked intent, "…You know, I take personal offense to people roughing up my cute little runts. That's my job," With that being said, he opened both of his eyes to reveal the Sharingan in one of them, "I like it even less when they try to kill one of them."

Because of the unnatural process by which the two obtained the bloodlines it wasn't a legitimate faceoff, but for the first time in decades it was Mokuton against Sharingan.

XxX

(With Naruto and Tenten)

"I love Kakashi!" Naruto bawled as he and Tenten fled away from the scene of the battle that Kakashi had snagged from them, "I love that man so much! I'll never make fun of him behind his back ever again!"

"Are you alright?" Tenten asked Naruto, noting how roughed up he looked. There was still blood on his face and staining his shirt, but he wasn't paying any attention to his superficial blood loss, "That guy… what was that all about? We haven't done anything to the Senju Clan! The only real clan we've fought is the Uchiha Clan! Wouldn't that make them actually like us instead?"

Not only that, but Naruto was an Uzumaki! Tenzo's Wood Clone had confirmed that he knew that Naruto was one after he'd trapped him! Those two clans were incredibly tight with each other!

It was time for Naruto to get it off his chest. It wasn't fair that she didn't know why any of this was happening. They had only known each other for just under two months. Even if it was technically the right thing to do, to fight for your partner, it wasn't right that she didn't know the reason she was sticking her neck out.

Even if she chose to run away from that point forward, to hell with it. It was better that she did so and lived out of fear of him than if she died never knowing just what brought it on in the first place.

"Tenten," Naruto said as they continued to flee through the town to a safer area, "That guy, he's after me because of something I have, and what I am. I'm a jinchuuriki, and that means that I've got a biju sealed inside of me."

She almost tripped and fell out of surprise upon hearing such a thing, but a sharp grab on her arm by Naruto kept her upright, "What? That's possible? No way," A look to the side to see his face saw that he was dead serious. Naruto didn't lie. He may have embellished from time to time, but he never lied, "You're not kidding. Why didn't you tell me?"

"How?" Naruto asked in return, keeping his eyes peeled for an attack, "What, do we just wake up one morning and somewhere between morning training and breakfast I say, 'Hey Tenten, by the way I just thought you should know, I've got a biju in me. You know, one of those things like Shukaku?'"

"**I'm not a biju or a thing weakling. I'm **_**the**_** thing and **_**the**_** biju. Either use my name or get it straight."**

A contemplative look pasted itself on Tenten's face at the thought of something like Shukaku being inside of her friend if this was to be believed. Fuuinjutsu really was scary.

That raised the question of why he was telling her this to begin with. There was guilt all over his face and she could only roll her eyes at the thought, "You think I'm supposed to be scared because you've got a big chakra monster sealed inside of you? No way," She declared with a smile tugging at her lips, "You're way too puny to be scary."

"Oi!" Why did it always come back to the height? He'd get taller soon damn it, "I'm not _that_ little!"

It was all in jest however, meant to break the tension between them, "Seriously, are you kidding? I've seen Shukaku. After living with you and seeing him, Shukaku is infinitely scarier. There's no comparison between the two of you for being frightening, and when your clan talks about seals people are supposed to take your word for it."

She was getting earnestly attached to Naruto and Kakashi as a unit anyway. After having no one with her since her parents died, something that hadn't raised an issue until that point wasn't going to shoo her away from people that she wanted to be around now of all times. Having experienced both solitude and having a family in the past, being with people was much better than being alone.

The two of them decided that any battle Kakashi was in would be way too intense to be anywhere near, especially when the person he was fighting had the ability to make a great wall of trees out of his chakra and split through the road with a torrent of water. The best option in this case was to cross over to the other side of Twin Ridge Town to give themselves fresh places to hide. It was a big town. There were plenty of places to go.

As they crossed the dam bridging the two sides of the town, Naruto felt like he was missing something when he felt one particular step he'd taken on the sturdy bridge collapse through. An entire extra segment of the dam had been mimicked by countless sheets of paper that managed to mask the illusion of them actually being parts of the structure.

Tenten caught Naruto's arm and pulled him back up onto the actual dam before he could fall to what was almost assured to be a pretty horrible death form that height, 'I almost fell! You warned me about half of the stuff that happened to me today, why didn't you warn me about that one!? We could have actually _not_ taken the dam!' There were like six other bridges joining the two sides of the town.

Kurama was not willing to admit that he couldn't tell the difference between a worthless human structure and an illusion of a useless human structure comprised of paper, and he was more than willing to make up an excuse, **"…I thought you had it."**

'No, I didn't have it!'

As they recovered from the near-fall, Konan appeared from the remnants of her false environment. Her body seemed to come together from countless sheets of paper, as if they comprised the entire body composition of the beautiful woman and her black dress.

"Tenzo is too cautious," Konan declared, walking toward the two kids, "He insisted that the safest manner to deal with you would have been coaxing you to utilize your biju's chakra before shutting you down with his Mokuton binding techniques. He expected you to do so the moment you realized that you were in distress. You never tapped into any though did you?"

"I didn't even know I could," Naruto admitted, trying in vain to reason that he wasn't dangerous, "I don't know anything about biju or jinchuuriki or anything. Leave us alone already!"

Not a muscle on Konan's face even flinched, "You're in no position to be demanding anything of me little one," She said coolly, her eyes drifting to Tenten where they stopped and she herself stopped moving. Seeing her with Naruto stirred thoughts of times long since passed. Times that didn't end so well for her or the other person she saw in those thoughts, "You remind me of how I used to be. That's a shame."

Unlike how she regarded what she had to do to Naruto, she actually felt honest remorse for what she was about to do to Tenten. She wasn't Tenzo though. Her outlook on the world was much bleaker than his, and in that outlook kids got no mercy simply for being kids.

With a wave of her hands, dozens of the paper sheets floating around in the air from her previously disrupted trick on the eyes folded themselves into large shuriken, spears, and assortments of other weapons before. In response, Naruto fitfully formed a circle's worth of clones with their hands pressed together in front of their bodies, "Fuuton: Repuushou (Wind Release: Gale Palm)!"

Weaponized or not, paper was still paper. With clones to protect all of the available blind spots that a fatal attack could have come from, Naruto created something of a small wind storm in his endeavor to blow the deadly origami away.

A small smirk came to Konan's lips as he did this. Yes, it did what Naruto had intended it to. It protected him and Tenten from the more straightforward attack of her origami weapons, but in doing so it also kicked up the even more numerous stray sheets of paper littering the dam. Since she had manipulated the shape of every sheet of paper he'd seen since her introduction to him, he hadn't been conditioned to realize that every sheet was dangerous, folded or not.

A plume of paper rose up, keeping in flow with Naruto's wind currents until they suddenly turned inward and affixed themselves to the multiple versions of him creating the windy ruckus. From head to toe they were covered entirely in paper, to the point that their movements were bound and their noses and mouths were smothered.

Asphyxiation was a horrible way to die, even for a clone, thus they dispelled themselves prior, revealing that again to Konan's unwelcome recognition Naruto was gone, and he'd taken Tenten with him. That brat sure knew how to try and make himself scarce.

From what was supposed to be her blind spot she was assaulted by several clones only for them to be skewered with paper sheets that had still been littered all around. With a cast of her hand she engulfed Naruto and Tenten up to their waists in paper before the latter could reach for a pair of scrolls on her person. How did you fight millions of sheets of levitating paper?

His arms were free, but he couldn't Kawarimi his way out of it due to a particular tag attached to the small of his back amongst the rest of the papers; a Chakra Suppression Tag.

"As far as techniques go, Tenzo was your worst possible match short of the absolute strongest of Uchiha little one," Konan said to Naruto as the papers began to blanket his head, covering his eyes and ears as it crept down to his nose and mouth, "Right after that I think I rank as the next worst for you in my opinion. There was nothing you could have done to get away from both of us."

"Long time no see Konan."

In a Shunshin so fast that the person performing the jutsu appeared before the papers littering the ground stirred to register his presence, a man with shockingly bright blond hair and a flowing white haori stood in a crouch with a strange kunai in his hand. His mere presence by itself demanded Konan's full attention.

She almost couldn't believe who she was seeing. Why now of all times? To find him here, it was just her lot in life, "…Minato," The blue-haired woman said crossly, identifying her pesky interloper, "The last I'd heard, you were wandering through the desert. I'd hoped it would have been for forty years, but I guess I can't be that fortunate."

Minato stood up with a stern look on his face, flipping his kunai before pointing it at Konan, "So I was sitting at my inn out on the balcony looking out over the ravine trying to figure out where I was going to go next, when all of a sudden way back in the distance I saw a big extra chunk of the dam that hadn't been there before suddenly transform as if a paper mill had sneezed. And I thought to myself, 'Who do I know that could do anything like that?'"

Fighting him had not been in her plans whatsoever. Konan believed in her heart and soul, from the absolute bottom of it that she could overcome any ninja even if it took her life to do it, but against Minato, fighting him out of the blue was impossible. You didn't just run up against Namikaze Minato and defeat him out of the blue with no preparation.

"I wish I could say that it was nice to see you again, but I'd be lying," Konan bit spitefully, "I personally would have preferred to never see you again Minato."

"Now that's not how you treat a former fellow apprentice," Minato said with a frown, "We were all Jiraiya-sensei's students; you, me, and Yahi-."

"Don't. Say His. Name," Konan stated, ice water flowing through her words, "You left. You went away and became the famous 'Yellow Flash' all on your own. After you left, Jiraiya-sensei must have gotten bored with us, because we were nowhere near as strong as you were when he said that we were serviceable enough shinobi to take care of ourselves. You have no idea what happened after you two found better things to do, but maybe I can give you an idea."

With a motion of her hand, the copious sheets of paper covering Naruto and Tenten coughed them out and hurled them off of the dam.

Though most of Naruto's body was covered, when he saw Konan hurl him over the side, Minato's brain took in the boy's features in slow motion. Eyes widening in horror, he touched down on the dam before bolting over the edge after the falling children.

It was a long drop before they hit the craggy bottom, and Konan had thrown them far enough away from the structure that even if they were able to think about it they couldn't latch onto the wall with their chakra to try and stick to slow themselves.

Minato careened through the air until he got close enough to grab at Naruto's shirt, but he found that the boy shoved Tenten into his arms instead. A smile instantly planted itself on Minato's face as he flashed away with her, and then right back to retrieve Naruto and return the two children to the safety of the dam. He quickly looked around only to find that Konan had taken the opening of chucking Naruto and Tenten off of the dam as an opening to leave and avoid a confrontation with him.

That was fine. He wasn't really spoiling to fight an old friend anyway. There was something much more important right in front of him at the moment.

"Why'd you do that?" Minato asked Naruto, standing behind him a decent distance away as the boy tried to slow his heart rate down after taking an unwanted plunge, "I was going to get you both, so why'd you have to make sure that she was first?"

Naruto shook his head, sitting on the dam, eyes wide and affixed to the ground from the near-death experience as Tenten laid on her belly in a similar state of mind, "Hah… hah… because none of this had anything to do with her. It's not fair… that she got caught up with my stuff. I knew you would'na jumped if you didn't have a way to get us both. Even if you didn't, you getting her was good enough for me."

Minato smiled warmly at him, not that Naruto could see it, 'That really is my boy,' Kushina did well with him, "Yeah, actually even if I didn't have a sure-fire way to get you both I still probably would have jumped anyway. Fathers are kind of supposed to get like that when it comes to their sons."

With that being said, Naruto's form visibly stiffened. His head craned around while Tenten rolled over to her back to actually take full account of the person that had saved them. Looking at the sleeve of his shirt that Minato had firmly grabbed to tag him, Naruto saw a strange formula array and looked back over to the man.

It was almost too much for Tenten to take in at first, "…M-Minato-sama."

So this really was him? The jolt of yellow that he vanished and appeared in to get them away from their would-be death plunge, his physical features, and Tenten's reaction to the sight of him were all the confirmation Naruto needed after the man himself acknowledged that he was his father.

"Wow," Minato said, eyes full of wonder as he tried to come up with the words to say. This entire turn of events had been unexpected, and he'd taken it all as it had come, from seeing Konan to realizing that she was about to kill his son, to having to save his son, compartmentalizing it all to handle one at a time. Now that it was over, he was overcome, "You… the last time I saw you, you were such a little thing Naruto."

Naruto's mouth moved, but nothing came out. He didn't have the slightest idea of what to say. Seriously, that was his father? The man seemed to glow or something. Either oxygen deprivation from before had gotten to his brain or he was losing it.

All he could do was act.

Stepping forward, Naruto tentatively held his arms out as if he wanted something but didn't know what to anticipate from the man in front of him. Seeing that Naruto wanted a hug almost brought a tear to Minato's eye and he couldn't move forward fast enough to embrace his son.

Which was what made him such a prime target for a quick knuckle jab to the throat.

Minato had been stooping down to hug Naruto on his level and quickly shot back up, holding his throat, rasping, and sputtering after enduring the blow. Tenten could only watch with a dry look on her face, "Oh, you were really serious when you said you were going to punch him in the throat when you saw him."

"Of course I was, 'ttebayo!" Naruto said, pointing emphatically at Minato, "Did you think I wasn't ever gonna come see you old man? Did you think saving my ass one time made up for ten years of never seein' your face once? You better recognize!"

"I thought you were going to give him a chance!" Tenten argued in Minato's favor after Naruto's miniature tirade, "You said you would in the desert!"

"All I did was hit him! I never said I didn't want anything to do with him at all!"

"You just punched one of the strongest men in the world!"

Naruto looked over at Minato who still seemed to be trying to clear his throat from the pain of the shot. One of the strongest? Really? "Are you sure? Because Kakashi would've _never_ let me hit him, even if we were that close." Squinting as he appraised his father, Naruto's face twisted up in thought, "Huh…"

Minato rubbed his throat one last time, biting back a tear as he cleared his throat, "Wait, what about Kakashi?" How did his son know Kakashi? As a matter of fact… "Naruto, why are you here? You should be back on Uzu no Kuni with Kushina."

"Uh, sometimes I take really enthusiastic walks."

"…We're about 700 miles away from the east coast of Hi no Kuni." In other words, he was a long way away from home.

"_Really_ enthusiastic walks."

XxX

(A While Later – Minato's Inn)

Kakashi wasn't sure how he'd expected a fight with someone named for a skill known as 'Wood Release' to go, but he had to say that he hadn't been expecting enough trees being grown from the ground to fill six full city blocks just to give the man a tactical advantage.

Thank goodness Minato hadn't been in town alone. That battle might have gotten out of hand otherwise.

Because creating a miniature forest wasn't out of hand in of itself. Not by Kakashi's standards.

After seeing a woman and countless pieces of paper fly through the air, Tenzo pulled out of the fight just as Jiraiya arrived to turn the tide further in Kakashi's favor. If he could find Naruto once he could find him again later, so Tenzo backing off for the time being didn't surprise Kakashi very much.

"Thanks again Jiraiya-sama," Kakashi said, wincing as Jiraiya applied bandages to his bruised shoulder and bicep, "Between Shukaku and Tenzo, well I guess you could say it's been quite a week."

"No, thank Minato," Jiraiya said, unrolling the medical bandage around the younger man's arm, "He was the one that first saw that something seemed to be up, and he made me go with him. Trust me, if it was up to me I probably wouldn't have budged from where I was doing research and I would have missed that it was you altogether. Do you know how many battles happen in this town? This place is outlaw central."

"Battles involving trees growing into the air in the middle of crowded business hubs?" Kakashi asked, turning his head out of the window to squint across the ravine at the side of the town he had been fighting at, "I think you can still see it from here."

"The more high-level the fight, the less reason for me to feel inquisitive and poke around," Jiraiya drawled, "Like I said; thank Minato." He emphasized with a sharp tightening of Kakashi's bandage before he patted him a little too hard in his recently wounded shoulder, "So you brought Minato's kid did you?"

Getting up, Kakashi nodded to the older white-haired man as the two of them headed out. A big part of Jiraiya wanted to see the whole father/son meeting, and he had never even seen the boy to begin with. Kakashi on the other hand was willing to wait things out back with his primary responsibility in protecting the cart now that he'd achieved his overreaching mission parameter of getting Naruto to Minato.

XxX

(With Naruto)

Minato had gotten the entire rundown of what had happened from Naruto while he had been walking with the kids on their way back to the ramen cart. He let him in on what had happened to warrant his departure from home. Minato had never had such a stroke of intent to kill someone quite the way that he had when Naruto had told him of the masked person who had put everything in motion. From there, Naruto explained how he'd met Kakashi, and why he had been asked by Kushina to seek Minato out.

Much to Naruto's consternation, Minato had requested to examine Naruto's seal right there on the spot. He was not disappointed by his wife's handiwork.

"Incredible…" Minato said with a hapless smile and a shake of his head, "She had the guts to try and double up on a Four Symbols Seal to make her own. Your mother is about as subtle as a stick of dynamite," He remarked, amused as ever at Kushina's technique. Despite the absence from his beloved she hadn't changed a bit in terms of her philosophy on ninjutsu, "You must have something really nasty inside of you if she had to use a seal like this. It's supposed to steadily leak the chakra of whatever's inside of you to mix with your own."

Rolling his eyes at Tenten and how she was amused at his dad poking and prodding at his stomach, Naruto gave his own two cents on the matter, "Mom said that the Four Symbols Seal would have only kept Kurama inside of me, and that he was too strong for a seal like that."

Nodding in understanding, Minato could see why. From Naruto's description, 'Kurama' was the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox of legend, "I'll bet."

"**I like him,"** Kurama declared inside of Naruto's head, **"Look at his face. He's still smiling but I can feel it. He understands the awesome majesty of my powerful power. Tell him the best part."**

Naruto did just that. Though why Kurama thought that this was the best part was beyond him, "If Kurama's power didn't have a way out, I would have blown up in the middle of the village a few days later and killed everybody. But even after that, with the whisker-marks and the guys that could use Mind's Eye of the Kagura they figured out what I had pretty quick and were gonna extract Kurama."

CRASH!

Still pleasantly smiling at his progeny, Minato's face didn't even register that he'd put his own fist through a nearby brick wall out of suppressed rage. Needless to say, Naruto and Tenten were terrified. They didn't even see his arm move to throw the punch, "Sorry about that. My finger slipped. Go on buddy, continue."

"Old man, did… did you just hit that wall?" Naruto asked, pointing at the spot directly behind Minato that now had a nice new hole through it to someone's property.

"No," Minato replied courteously, belying just how fast and strong he _really_ was. He didn't want to scare either of them after all, "Did either of you see me hit the wall?"

The younger ninjas looked at one another with Tenten just shrugging before Naruto answered, "Well, no."

"Then if you didn't see me do it, I didn't do it," His bruised and scuffed knuckles said otherwise, but Minato's philosophy had always been that if someone didn't see you do something that you didn't want them to know about, it didn't happen, "Alright?"

"I don't think it works like that, but o~kay?" Maybe Minato was that strong after all, "Anyway, ever since then me and Kakashi have been working on a bodyguard contract with this old man that makes awesome ramen and his daughter, and I met Tenten while we were doing that, and she came with us, and-."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, let me process all of that before you go on too far," Despite that, Minato couldn't help but grin. He could just see the Kushina aspect inside of the boy and it made him miss her in the worst way, "Tenten, don't think I don't remember you. Are you still only happy when you have a kunai in your hand?" He asked jokingly.

"No," Tenten muttered bashfully after being put on the spot. Clearly he remembered her love affair with all of the ninja tools in the world that he'd shown her back when he trained her, "…It's more than just kunai now."

What was she being all modest for? Naruto didn't know. If it was him, he'd have been spouting off in his own favor. Luckily he lacked all of the modesty that Tenten apparently had and he was willing to bloviate in her stead for her, "She invents her own ninja tools that work… and they're really good."

Suddenly Tenten found her toes very interesting when she realized that Minato's smile was directed at her, "Well I'm happy you've been with Naruto here to help him out." All she could do in return was mumble, "Naruto, how has your mother been?"

It was a question that Naruto had been waiting on and wanted to answer, but he found that he didn't know how, "Mom's just… mom," How else was he supposed to put it, "It's not like I knew what she was like before you left. You were never there at all so I don't really have anything to-…" He trailed off upon realizing how malicious that probably sounded, not in tone but in content.

He didn't mean to be that blunt or callous. It just came out that way. He knew how what he'd said sounded right after it had left his mouth.

You couldn't take things back after you said them, whether you meant them to sound a certain way or not.

"Old man…" Naruto said after a few seconds of stillness and silence, "I didn't mean-. I mean, I want to think you would've been around if you could've, but you just weren't," He didn't know how else to put it, "She told me about you all the time, about why you couldn't be with us and why we couldn't be with you, but I want to hear it from you."

Tenten grabbed Naruto's sleeve and waved at him and Minato before taking off onto the rooftops by herself, "I'll go ahead and check on Ayame-chan and Teuchi-san. It's supposed to be my turn to take your shift anyway isn't it?"

She didn't even wait for an answer before hopping off to do as she said and to give her friend and her first trainer some time. She wasn't about to be a third wheel for any longer than she had to be in that scenario. It wasn't her place to be there.

All she could do was wish her partner luck. It had been a tough day thus far physically, and it didn't seem like things were going to get much easier from an emotional standpoint.

Minato had figured back from the bit of training that he'd given her that Tenten was a smart girl, and he was very grateful that she had some ability to read the mood because this was something that should have been kept between he and Naruto. Not that it was a big secret, it was just personal business.

Outside of a storefront, the two of them sat down, Naruto looking over at Minato patiently as his father stared straight ahead, hands clasped on his knees as he thought things through, "I'm sure you know that a female clan ninja wedding outside of the clan unless otherwise approved is a bit of a black mark. I don't want you to think that's the only reason I couldn't stay there. That by itself really would have been nothing, and if it really was they would have cast her out and let me take the two of you. That's not why I wasn't around."

Naruto just shrugged and kicked his legs from where he was sitting on the bench, "I don't know anything about it then old man. That was the only reason I ever got. It was the only reason anybody ever threw in my face when it came up."

Kids would hold it over his head and say that it was what their parents had told them about him and why he was so different. Even Kushina never really went any further than that in why Minato wasn't with them when she was telling Naruto stories about him.

She never disputed that it was the big reason why, and if enough people keep saying the same thing about you for a long enough period of time you start believing that it's actually true.

"It's a little more complicated than that. I promise," Minato assured Naruto, pointing at the Hiraishin formula on his shirt, "That's one of the big reasons; that I know Hiraishin. It's a legendary Senju Clan jutsu, and other than me the only person that could ever perform it alone was Tobirama Senju, the second strongest member of that clan ever. And they took offense to that. You probably know the drill; an enemy of the Senju is an enemy of the Uzumaki."

Which included him, because he had 'stolen' their jutsu, mastered it when no more of them ever could seem to, and because he was trying to break apart the ninja system that currently had them sitting at the tippy-top of the heap.

All Naruto knew about was the Hiraishin thing for the most part. It was the first thing that always came up when Minato was spoken of, "You can teleport anywhere with it right? Anywhere you marked already?" Naruto's eyes lit up at the thought, "Man, that's got to be awesome."

"It is," Minato admitted with not a hint of shame, "And the marks don't ever go away either. If you wanted to keep me from teleporting to that shirt you'd have to rip it at the formula, put it somewhere that I can't teleport to like a caved in passageway, or destroy it altogether. I can actually brand people with it too, but that's not nice. To make sure it stays I've got to get it pretty deep on their actual bodies."

"I don't get it."

"Well I have a jutsu that grinds into people on contact, so if I hit them with it and mark them with my chakra at the same time, if I don't kill them that brand isn't going anywhere. Ever. Tattoo-style."

"Ouch."

"Yep," He reached out and ruffled Naruto's hair as he picked up where he left off with explaining, "But like I said, Hiraishin's not the only reason. The other reason is because of what I want to do. It's not really a safe idea to pitch to more of the hardened types out in the world. I've made a lot of friends with the idea, but no one ever wants to do anything to really move forward with it. A village comprised of all sorts of clans. A way to bring so much of the hostility and constant killing to an end."

Cue a blank look from Naruto as Minato continued to jabber on about something that was clearly going over Naruto's head.

"I want a system where all sorts of different ninjas can live and work together. Where kids aren't expected to fight tooth and nail on the battlefield like grown men. Something that can demolish the boundaries between the clans of the world," He saw a look of abject confusion on the boy's face, "You never heard anything about it? I thought Kakashi would have told you at least."

XxX

(With Konan and Tenzo)

"You had Naruto-san in a situation where you could have ended his life and his biju would never have factored in, but you retreated from Namikaze-san," A combat-disheveled Tenzo pointed out as he and Konan returned to a Senju post in Hi no Kuni, "So he's really that powerful then?"

"If I had continued to try and focus on asphyxiating Naruto, Minato would have had more than enough of an opportunity to kill me first," Konan replied tersely, "He is not the kind of person you can split your attention on even the slightest bit."

Konan didn't want to talk about _that man_, but Tenzo had been in a conflict of his own when he'd noticed her departure. If he hadn't been aware enough he would have been caught in a less than enviable situation of having to fight Hatake Kakashi, Jiraiya, and if he somehow overcame them both he would then have to content with Namikaze Minato.

He had to be assured without question that he couldn't have succeeded in that environment. Even if he was one of the biggest guns of the Senju Clan, there wasn't a way for him to power through that situation.

"Whatever you think you know about the Hiraishin, I can almost guarantee you that you're not prepared for his adaptation of it," Konan assured him, "However your clan expects solo users of the jutsu to perform it, the way he uses it has to be different."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because that's how he is. It's how he always was," Konan insisted, "If he doesn't create the technique himself, he'll make it so that he performs it in a way that isn't like anyone else's version, just to stay a step ahead."

"You seemed to have a grudge against Naruto-san. Is it because of Namikaze-san?"

As much as she didn't want to admit that her approach to handling Naruto was colored by some kind of personal grievance against him, she would have been honest in saying that it wasn't the case. She honestly had nothing against _him_. Unfortunately, he still never had a chance in the department of winning her favor. It was his parents that she had issues with however.

How could one child be born from two people that she so severely disliked for separate reasons? And how could that child have a place in her life somewhere where he could be a major problem? It was impossibly bad luck.

Then again, if one were to ask the blue-haired woman herself, impossibly bad luck was the trademark of her life.

"There were three of us. Myself, a boy named Yahiko, and Minato," Konan said, "Three of us that trained under Jiraiya-sensei at the same time, all orphans. He got us from different places, picked us up for whatever reason, and trained us as ninjas so that we weren't sitting ducks to be killed in some godforsaken crossfire."

He worked with them, they all did missions… it was nice for a while. Then he said that there was nothing he could teach Minato anymore, and Minato left to do his own thing, leaving Konan and the third student Yahiko with Jiraiya. It didn't take too much longer for Jiraiya to declare the same to them, and from there Jiraiya headed onward.

That was when things began to fall apart again. But that wasn't something that Konan liked to think about.

"So what now?" Tenzo asked, as Konan was still his senior even if he felt that he was more powerful than her, "I'll regroup at the base, report to Tsunade, and get an order from there. What about yourself?"

"I'm going back to Uzu no Kuni," Konan said resolutely, "If Naruto is with Minato now it's too dangerous to go after him without a complete understanding of what Minato is capable of. There's only one person I can go to for help. And I _will_ get something useful, even if getting anything from her would be like getting blood from a stone."

XxX

(With Naruto and Minato)

"You want me to get Kushina," Minato said to Naruto, getting a fervent nod from the boy who was ecstatic that he was being understood, "…I never would have thought that things would get that bad. I did everything I did, and I left you behind because otherwise you wouldn't have had anything. You might not have had me, but you had your clan."

Kushina was more than likely a prisoner by now. Nagato was still the clan head, so he would never hurt her, but he wouldn't simply let her be either. He had a duty to the Uzumaki Clan first and foremost, and that responsibility overrode anything he might have felt for a childhood friend.

After hearing Minato's reasoning, Naruto frowned and shook his head, fists forming at his sides, "I… I feel more for Kakashi and Tenten than I did for anybody at home," He almost felt ashamed to admit that, but it was true. The only clan member he'd spent any actual time with over the years had been Karin, and she and he had never been close, "Mom was all I had."

"Naruto," Minato said, stooping down to set his hands on his son's shoulders, "If there really isn't anything there for her or you any longer, I'll get Kushina out. Kami knows I always wanted her, you, with me anyway. I just didn't want to make her choose between her duty to her clan and staying with me," She did love her clan, would have done anything for them, and endured her only child's exclusion from their society. Putting her son on the executioner's block for nothing was simply one bridge too far however, "…Now I figure it would have been better if she'd have broken all ties from the start."

Why not? All of those ties seemed to decay over time anyway after he'd left with the express purpose of preserving said ties. The only thing leaving Kushina and Naruto behind seemed to do was make things painful for them over a longer stretch of time.

So he was going to get his wife out of there, one way or another. Nothing would have made him happier than all of them being together, except of course them all being together with a permanent place to settle down.

"I can't make up for what I wasn't around to do before," Minato said, "But I can start doing the things for you and Kushina that I always wanted to now, and that means that first and foremost I'm going to get her back to you."

With a hopeful grin on his face, Naruto punched into his own palm and bounced eagerly on the balls of his feet, "That's what I'm talkin' about old man. Let's get goin' now! We can-!"

"I can't take you Naruto," Minato cut him off before he could get too excited about walking into the den of the 'enemy' to snatch back his mother, "Getting in there isn't going to be easy. The Uzumaki Clan are the only ones aside from the Senju that are capable of erasing my markers, and they got rid of the one I had on Kushina after I left-."

"But I live there! If anybody can handle it, it's gotta be me!"

"-And you're a target Naruto." Minato said, giving the boy a firm, brain-rattling shake to make sure he realized this, "Konan is going back to Nagato now. Those two were close even before I married Kushina. This isn't going to be stealthy. If I'm good and if I'm lucky I won't have to get into a fight until I get into the village, but more than likely they're going to know I'm there five minutes after I reach shore."

All of this was just affirming to Naruto why he needed to go, "So you need help? I can help," Minato once again wouldn't budge on this matter, "Why not? I'm a ninja too. I've seen and done stuff too, just like you or mom. I can handle it."

"No one should ask you to handle it Naruto. This is my fault. All of this happened because I am who I am," Minato insisted resolutely, "If I wasn't I wouldn't have had to leave. I would have been there to be a husband and a father. No one, mask or not, would have ever gotten the chance to stick Kurama-san inside of you, and this wouldn't have ever been an issue."

"**Kurama-**_**sama**_** you worm. We're not equals."** Kurama chimed in from inside of Naruto's head before putting on his pragmatic shoes so to speak, **"The man is right boy. You were just handed your ass by the Senju and the paper woman. The only thing you'll do is slow him down and place a gigantic bullseye on your chest… or stomach actually."**

'I know it's not smart,' Naruto groused internally, mentally picturing himself standing before Kurama's cage and staring down at the water pooled around his ankles, 'I _know_. But she's my mom, and he can say that it's his fault from the start, but she's mine. This is about me, and he's going to go off and clean up my mess for me? I'm just supposed to sit back and have him tell me everything's gonna be alright?'

Kurama didn't bother stating that it wasn't his mess to clean up either since nothing that had occurred was really his fault. That was just too easy. Instead he struck at a different point, **"In my own limited experience, that's generally what fathers do."** He said dryly.

'But…' Despite his attempts to dispute with his biju tenant, he knew that Kurama was right. Just looking in Minato's eyes he could see how much it meant to him to finally have a chance to fix his family life in some way. On the other hand, "…What am I supposed to do?"

There was a sinking feeling in the pit of Naruto's stomach that Kurama quickly picked up on with his own sensitivity in regards to negative emotions. He could see inside of the boy's heart, and it was more than just a misplaced and stubborn desire to finish what he felt he'd started. It was more than just a feeling of helplessness, sitting on the sidelines.

He had a creeping sort of paranoia that Minato would take his mother and leave him alone without either of them. It wasn't a prominent one, but he still had something of an abandonment issue.

"You've already done your share just by finding me," Minato insisted with a comforting smile, "So let me do the rest. Don't you have a contract to uphold with some people you're protecting anyway?"

Yes Naruto did, but it was only a sixty day deal, and those sixty days were almost up. When that contract lapsed… well, he didn't want to just leave like that, with nothing but a goodbye. But this was bigger than that. They were in a place where Teuchi and Ayame could pick up brand new bodyguards just like that. They could probably throw a rock into the air and it would come down within five feet of some kind of fighter-for-hire.

They deserved a ninja escort that would keep them as their primary responsibility at all times. Naruto couldn't earnestly say that he could be that person for them if they were looking to renew, and the thought of something like today happening again scared him.

Someone as strong as Konan or Tenzo could attack again while he was with them, and the next time someone did come after his throat they would more than likely try to get at them to get to him. Many ninjas didn't have a problem with causing civilian casualties if it would get them to their target. That was one reason why so many people died when they weren't even combatants. Total war was _extremely_ popular.

"I'll tell you what you can do more than anything else," Minato told Naruto with the utmost seriousness on his face, "Get as strong as you can. When I come back with Kushina, everything's going to get out of hand… fast."

"But I already train, every day, with clones when I learn a new jutsu!" Naruto replied, waving his arms around.

"There's-, wow really?" Minato was stunned for a moment before shaking it off, as impressive as it was there was a point he needed to make, "There's something else you can start doing not involving any jutsu. Something that no one else can do," He reached out and pat Naruto on the stomach, "You know more about your seal than you think you do. Your mom, when she created it she'd never used it before had she?" Naruto shook his head, "That's what I thought. You know just as much about the seal now as the two of us. More actually since you're the one with the seal on you."

"Eh?"

"Yes. You're an actual jinchuuriki. Who knows what you could be capable of?" Minato explained, "We don't know. No one has ever actually studied a jinchuuriki before. There have been so few, and they had their respective biju removed so quickly that no one has any idea what they're really capable of other than the danger factor of the biju being randomly released and going on a rampage."

Naruto thought he was beginning to get it. He had Kurama inside of him. There had to be more than its share of effects for such a thing, even if no one had documented them out of fear of what a jinchuuriki represented, "I… understand."

"What I'm saying is, that if you're a jinchuuriki I want you to be the best one that you can be," The powerful blond man gave the boy a gentle shove to rile him up and encourage him, "You say you're going to find a way to get Kurama-san out of you without getting yourself killed, but until you do you're going to be a target. There's only two ways to offset being targeted. You can either be hidden away-."

"Fuck that!" Naruto let slip before covering his mouth. Parents were supposed to hate kids cursing, especially that harshly.

"-OR," Minato gave him a hard look for using such language in front of him as a warning to refrain from doing that in the future, "You have to get so strong that _no one_ has the heart to take you on or send anyone after you. Ninjas are afraid of the idea of a jinchuuriki to begin with, but you've got to back it up when push comes to shove. I know that you can figure this out, and you won't be alone. You have Kakashi, and Tenten, and when I get back you'll have Jiraiya, me, and your mother. And I can't wait until I actually get to introduce you to my other contacts in the world."

The big cheesy grin he gave Naruto upon bringing up showing him off to the friends he'd made across the Elemental Nations simply radiated pride and happiness. He really was ecstatic that Naruto had come to him, even under circumstances that were less than desirable.

"I have full faith in you," The man said with a content sigh, "You've come this far just to find me. All I'm asking you to do is wait for just a little while, and believe in me when I say that I'm going to get Kushina and bring her right to you. You don't have to see me as your father, I've missed so much of your life, but I look at you and I still see the baby I left in Kushina's arms in Uzu."

"What about Tenzo and that Konan lady?" Not that Naruto was wary of having to deal with either of them again of course.

"They'll have to track you all over again from scratch by the time they regroup, and neither of them will even think of trying anything until they believe that they have a way to get around me to get to you." Being one of the most dangerous men alive had its perks from time to time. One of them was that people were extremely wary of almost anything that had to do with you, "That aside, I don't think Konan will be leaving Nagato's side for quite some time now after this."

"Old man…"

This time, Minato didn't receive a blow of any sort to any part of his body when moved in to hug Naruto. The physical gesture wasn't returned, but as he'd said before, Minato didn't need that at the moment. Just having Naruto there and knowing that he was alright and growing well was more than he'd ever expected to see anytime soon.

"I believe in you Naruto, so I'm asking you to believe in me. Even if you don't now, I'll keep doing what I have to in order to make you feel that way. Be safe."

XxX

(Elsewhere in Twin Ridge Town)

"Thanks for all of the work," Teuchi said to Kakashi with a smile as the two shook hands, "What can I say? It was terrifying," He admitted at times with a shiver, having traveled in directions at Kakashi's behest. It wasn't like he'd had better ideas of where to go to scare up business, but he'd seen a full-scale ninja battle and a biju attack in a two month stretch, "I think I've been turned off of traveling for a good long while though."

After living in one place his entire life, moving around to test markets elsewhere around the Elemental Nations seemed like a great idea to gauge the popularity of his ramen in other places. It had been working out just fine as far as a business venture went, but the dangers out there simply overrode the intrepid traveling merchant's spirit that he'd initially set out with.

These shinobi types didn't mess around when it came time to get themselves into fights. Ayame could probably deal with it since she was young, but he was way too old to be alright with sticking his neck out like that, or even letting his daughter do it.

There were a few days left on the 60 day contract before it expired, but that wasn't enough time to move to another area, and the ramen purveyor wasn't even sure if he wanted to step foot out on the open road again after everything he'd seen thus far.

"Understood," Kakashi completely understood. Life on the road was rough and a sure-fire way to ensure that it ended earlier than it had to, "So what do you plan to do now if you aren't looking to move around?"

"Well there's no shortage of chances to do well in a place like this, and it's not like I'm hard-up for money if I'm hiring ninjas and traveling internationally right?" Teuchi asked rhetorically with a deep laugh, "I'll set up a shop here. Maybe expand elsewhere later. Just… not anytime soon. Not until things out there get a little less crazy."

Looking over at Tenten who was being given a monster of a bear hug goodbye from Ayame, Kakashi figured that now was as good a time as any to set out, "Right then. Well we'll be in touch. Take care and stay safe."

"Hey, we're not the ones that are going to be picking fights with other ninjas pal."

"Good point."

With that, Kakashi's contract came to an end and he set out with Tenten to find a place in town to stay for the night.

He kept quiet, nose buried in a brand new book that Tenten had never seen him read before as he led his young charge on through the town to find a place to stay for the night. She kept looking over at him as if she wanted to say something, but if she didn't have it in her to bring whatever it was up, he wasn't going to be the one to start any sort of uncomfortable conversation.

That wasn't his style unless he was out to embarrass someone.

Eventually she couldn't keep from speaking any longer, "So since Naruto found Minato-sama he isn't going to be with us anymore is he?" Mentioning that brought up another point, "…You're not going to keep me around now that you don't have to for Naruto are you?"

"That's not how this works," Kakashi remarked, "The second I taught you anything, you became my responsibility until I think you're strong enough to protect yourself. That's how Minato-sama was taught by Jiraiya-sama, and that's how I'm going to teach you."

"It's not how you were taught?"

"I'm a bit different," Kakashi said, turning a page in the book that he couldn't stop reading, "I don't follow Minato-sama because he trained me. He trained me a while after I started following him because I truly believe in his dream, even if it does seem impossible."

"You mean the 'village without borders' thing? The place with peace between the clans all working as equal ninjas?"

"So he told you?"

"A bit."

"Well that's basically the gist of it. It's all you need to know about it for now to have a good enough idea," Kakashi assured her, "But Naruto won't be staying with him. It's more dangerous for Naruto to remain with him than to stay with me. It's a reason why he didn't take you with him when he first trained you."

Tenten's brown eyes lit up at the unsaid suggestion that came from her current guardian. Did that mean what she was taking it to mean?

"Comin' in hot!" As if he'd been running all the way across the town to get to them, Naruto landed in a near trip and a crash, stumbling before playing off the clumsy touchdown. He turned to Kakashi and Tenten with a sheepish grin and held his hands up behind his neck, "Yo."

"Yo yourself," Kakashi replied, motioning for Naruto to fall in step with them, "So what did Minato-sama say to do?"

"He told me to follow you and listen to everything you say until he comes back," Naruto reported matter-of-factly, "

"You don't seem too happy about that," Tenten pointed out, feeling a bit of offense at how completely unenthused Naruto seemed to be at their continued partnership of sorts, "Any reason why?"

"I got ordered by my absentee father to listen to the orders of another guy that isn't even my dad," Naruto said with an underwhelmed drawl, "It kind of hurts. I wanted to go and get mom out myself. The whole time I thought that when I found him he'd take me with him to get her back!"

It really stung at his heart. He promised himself that he'd save Kushina. He figured that he would be going to get Minato's help and then they'd charge on back in there and get the job done. But now he was being kept out altogether. Was he really that weak? He knew there was a significant gap between Minato and himself, and pretty much every other ninja he'd met today, but that didn't matter did it? Kids that were ninjas were still ninjas.

And as a ninja his place was supposed to be in the fray, because that was where he was needed. At least that was what he thought.

"You don't understand just how powerful your clan is Naruto," Kakashi pointed out, "The adults know fuuinjutsu better than you do. Your major tactical advantage on the mainland against other ninjas has been your active use of fuuinjutsu in combat."

True. It was how he managed to beat the Uchiha Clan members that had outnumbered him while he'd been fleeing with Hinata. It was how he outmaneuvered Tenzo's Wood Clone a matter of hours ago. His bigger wins that mattered seemed to come due to some use of seal knowledge.

Fuunjutsu: get you some.

Even so, there would have been something that he could have done. He believed that with all of his heart. He had to. It was then that he got the blunt reality check from his current tenant.

"**The only benefit you'd have given that man was if he used you as a flesh-and-blood meatshield."**

'Kurama you suck!'

"**No, **_**you**_** suck. That's why you're not going."** The grin he could see inside of his head was taunting him. Kurama was certainly mean-spirited, **"I'm great. Just the thought of me being inside of you scares people into trying to kill you."**

Well he could take a little less pride in making Naruto a target couldn't he? And with that, Naruto decided to fire back, 'That still means that you suck too because you're inside of me. If I still suck and you're inside of me then you suck by default because that means that you being sealed inside of me doesn't do jack for me.'

"…" Kurama had no response to that, because he felt that technically Naruto had a point. It pissed him off extensively, **"Oh and you think you just ran up and got in Shukaku's face that fast all by yourself?"**

'You mean I didn't?' Naruto knew that something had been up with that, because he had never moved that fast before and could never duplicate it in training again no matter how hard he tried. He also hadn't been bleeding down his face at the time, so the red-tinted vision was another odd thing he hadn't been able to explain. Apparently Kurama was privy to what had happened, 'Whatever.

If he knew something and hadn't been telling until this point he had to be baited in, and Kurama was a prideful S.O.B.

The responding roar inside of Naruto's head was _not_ kind, **"Even stuck inside of you, I have more power than you could ever possibly imagine. I affect you without you even realizing it. The marks on your face, the way you healed so quickly after your fight with the Uchiha boy? Me. And those are just the tip of the iceberg."**

'Good!' Naruto mentally chirped with a grin spreading across his face, 'I'm looking forward to working out just what we can do together.'

"**You're damn right you're-. Wait, what? No. I don't help humans! Hey! Listen to me, I'm not helping you! My power is my power, and you can't have any! HEY!"**

Naruto deigned that dear old dad could have this one, and he wouldn't raise any more of a fuss than he already had. In the future though, if he thought he was going to keep Naruto out of what his son thought was his own business as well, he'd be sorely mistaken. By the time Minato saw him again he'd somehow have a handle on just what being a jinchuuriki was all about and what it really meant… somehow

He'd never let himself be left out of something as important as getting his mother out of Uzu no Kuni ever again.

For now he had to believe that his father was exactly who everyone constantly claimed that he was, and that he meant every word when he said he'd bring them all together soon. That was the only kind of man he'd truly believe in to get her out of there.

"I think I know what we should do next," Kakashi declared out of the blue, getting Naruto and Tenten's full attention as he clapped his book shut audibly, "Now that you've both met him, there wouldn't be much of a better time to actually show you two just what Minato-sama has been trying to do for over the last decade."

"The village thing?" Both Naruto and Tenten said in stereo.

"And that right there is why I'm going to show you," Kakashi insisted brightly, "Because just calling it 'the village thing' shows me that you both don't quite get it. I'm not the only one that follows instruction from your father Naruto, and Tenten you aren't the only child in your sort of situation. This is bigger than either of you know."

"Wait… I'm confused," Tenten said, getting an agreeable nod from Naruto.

"Well that just means that I have something to explain to you on the way."

"On the way to what?" Naruto asked, "You're being super-vague."

"I just told you Naruto. You really should open up your ears and listen for what's underneath the surface."

Naruto knew an insult when he heard one from Kakashi by now. Some of them were more subtle than others, "…I take back what I said about you earlier Kakashi. I'm totally gonna make fun of you behind your back again later."

"Oh I'm so heartbroken. Just look at my face. Can't you see what you're doing to me Naruto?" Kakashi deadpanned, "Because your opinion just means _so_ much to me."

From a rooftop somewhere behind them, Minato concealed himself from even his underling Kakashi's notice, smiling as he watched the people with his son head off together. It wasn't the choice he wanted to make for now, but it was the best one he had at his disposal.

Feeling a hand pat him on the shoulder, Minato looked back to see that it was Jiraiya, "Time to go," The older ninja said, "We've got to start planning to save your mysterious significant other after all don't we?"

Minato bid his teacher a smile before frowning, "Jiraiya-sensei, Konan's going to be with Nagato whenever we show up. I just thought that you should know that first and foremost before you volunteer to follow me in with whoever else we can get for this."

"That doesn't mean anything," Jiraiya said with a heavy sigh that showed his displeasure with being on the opposite side of the girl he'd trained. Still though, freelance ninjas that knew each other oftentimes ran up against one another in the field, "I already know she hates me for leaving, and she clearly chose the side that she wanted to be on. Besides, if this all works out, we won't have to fight at all, so it could work out that way right?"'

"…"

"…Yeah you're right. When do things ever work out like that?" Jiraiya groused before noticing that Minato was still looking after Naruto. It wasn't hard to piece together what was going through the man's mind, "Hey, Kakashi's got him."

"I just met him, and now I've got to leave him again?" Minato said before letting out a bitter chuckle, "He doesn't hate me yet, but even if I come back with Kushina…" He trailed off out of fear of the thought of Naruto never warming up to him, "…And what if I don't come back with her at all?"

"You don't really think you aren't going to pull this off do you?" Jiraiya asked, getting a shrug of the shoulders from the blond man, "Your miniature clone is going to be fine, and he won't be hard to find again. Just think; the next time you see him you'll have the family you always wanted back in one piece."

That thought made Minato smile.

With that, Minato and Jiraiya disappeared to elsewhere in a sudden flash of yellow.

* * *

**And that's it. **

**Minato is found, and rather soon things are going to get somewhat real. It's kind of hard to get a real handle on what Minato's character is supposed to be, so I need to start getting in the man's head. I need to start going around wearing a yellow fright wig and running everywhere to simulate speed… or as much speed as I can generate. In hindsight however, that's probably not a good way to get a character.**

**It's probably a decent workout though.**

**So next time, Tenzo and Konan's failure reaches back around, and all sorts of other good stuff to build the situations for the first major conflicts of the story. I said this story was going to be long, and I'm doing this straight out of my head, so it's coming right off of the cuff if you know what I mean. If you want me to let things blow up into a worldwide storm of rightfully epic proportions, let me do my thing damn it. I'm building a world to be changed here.**

**Either way, in other pressing news, Grand Theft Auto V, September 17th. I must have it. It's more of a need really. A petty need, but a need nonetheless. I haven't had a new game in well over nine months.**

**Shisora, if I am to believe what you told me in messages and I didn't dream it, you will soon be my new greatest American hero. After the whole beef jerky thing I have full faith in your abilities.**

**Now I am going to train by playing Grand Theft Auto IV until sunrise. I need to get my aim at throwing helicopters at particular people very good by the time I get to the multiplayer. I've got people counting on me to be as good at causing simulated urban mayhem in V as I was in IV.**

**Kenchi out.**


	10. Road to the Show

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. Maybe I should go about remedying this the way that Trevor Phillips from GTA V would, because that's a man that gets shit done. Fucking psychopath.

* * *

_Having someone with you that you can count on was more important than you could imagine. In a world where most people that could get away with it hid their surnames, if they even had them, just to avoid a situation where they could get killed, having someone to believe in and someone that believes in you is really special. Family in this instance does not count. It can't for this._

_You see, I was never the flat-out strongest ninja in the world. I don't think I ever got close really. Compared to how powerful some people, like Naruto for instance, eventually became, I was never even close to matching up to him when it came to raw power. Even so, I'd still like to think I became one of the very best. The track record of sheer things I've survived that would have eviscerated most other people should prove that._

_My strength wasn't in my physical abilities or my chakra, or because I was unbelievably tough and had an indomitable will. Never anything like that. At first glance I was just some nameless kunoichi that used a lot of weapons, ninja tools, in order to try and keep up. So what? There was nothing wrong with that. When you're outclassed at something you're outclassed at it, and there's not much you can do about it, so why even go there at all?_

_Eventually it was assumed that if you took all of my gear away from me I would be worthless, and while that was a _gross_ generalization of my abilities… people weren't entirely wrong about it. Without something in my hand or on my person to level the playing field against some of the creepier freaks and nightmare urban legends we went up against, things were awfully tough. When my self-esteem waned every now and again, there were times when I would wonder why Naruto kept me with him. _

_Eventually there were tons of people stronger than me that he could have chosen to team with. These were absolute powerhouses I'm talking about here, and many of them would have jumped at the chance to directly assist him, but when given the choice he always picked me._

_It took years for me to finally call him on it and ask him why. His answer was far simpler than I would have expected, given the kind of person he had become by then. I had expected something profound and thoughtful, but he just blew it off like it was something I shouldn't have had to ask at all. _

"_Why wouldn't I pick you? You're the only person that actually knows me."_

_Hearing that kind of made my heart clench a bit. But then, I don't know why hearing that surprised me. Through thick or thin, we stayed around each other. We'd been best friends, we'd been at each other's throats as if we hated each other, we'd fought each other, watched each other fight other people. We'd seen each other laugh, cry, bleed, cheat death, anything you could think of._

_Knowing everything about someone, anyone, on a personal level, not because they're your family or in your clan or anything, but because you know them, and you see them every single day, and you learn everything about them whether you intended to or not… that kind of thing was rare back then because of the climate of things. _

_Oh wait, when I started writing, this was supposed to be about something else wasn't it? Whatever. I like what I wrote, so I'm making Naruto keep this in. Maybe as an interlude between transition chapters or something._

_Tenten – 'End of Clan War Era Memoirs'_

**Chapter 10: Road to the Show**

* * *

Eyes slowly opening, Naruto found himself sitting on the water inside of the prison in his own mind, facing Kurama who seemed to be sleeping on his haunches right in front of him. For once he was patient though, and waited until the gargantuan fox snorted to convey that he was awake.

"**I hate that you realize how time passes significantly slower on the outside when you're actually in here now,"** Kurama declared, slowly opening his eyes to glare at Naruto, **"What do you want? What do you need? What?"**

This had been the ebb and flow of their relationship for a while. Naruto would show up bright and early in front of the cage every morning and would sit there for thirty minutes to an hour in real time, which was more like two and a half to five hours inside of his head. It was as if he were trying to establish something or look around for something that he could or couldn't do. It was very experimental.

Kurama lazily batted his tails around, trying to convince Naruto to leave, **"You must enjoy looking like you're spaced out and dead to the world. You know, mosquitos like flying into open eye sockets and other general facial orifices right? Get ready to enjoy that when you finally blink."**

"It's just that I've been trying to get a handle on this whole jinchuuriki thing for a week now," Naruto started to say with a welcome smile, "And I figured, what am I doing? I mean, I can't let you out, so you aren't going anywhere and you might be a gigantic, nasty, sociopathic fox-."

"**Ooh, big word. Did the scarecrow man teach you that one?"**

"-But I don't know that much about you," Naruto continued, his smile becoming a bit more strained after the insult to his intellect. He had been educated by his mother damn it, and well. It was just that there were certain ways he liked to speak and using big words when there were simpler ways to say things never appealed to him, "Anyway, I thought, since we're stuck together for a while, we might as well learn about each other. Neither of us are going anywhere, right?"

Kurama just gave Naruto the dullest stare that he could muster as a monstrous figure of destruction, which was actually quite impressive from him, **"Me wanting to learn about you on a personal level would be like a human being trying to learn about a shrimp or some other bottom-feeding seafood that they're known to devour on a personal level."**

"Well I guessed that already," Naruto said with a shrug, "That's why I really just want to hear about you."

"**You **_**want**_** to hear about me?"** Kurama asked incredulously, **"I just have to ask, did you have a major nightmare last night? Because if you did I should have been able to feel it. Negative emotions are kind of my thing."**

"There! Just like that! You saying that feeling negative emotions or whatever is your thing, more of that! Like, what does that mean?" Naruto asked, animatedly waving his arms around for emphasis, "Is it just me, or can you feel killing intent better than I can?"

Kurama stared at him long and hard, feeling absolutely no deceit or falsehood of interest from Naruto as he spoke. The boy had always been that way when it came to him. When they'd first met he'd cared nothing about Kurama's size and power other than the fact that he thought he was cool. This child was truly a wondrous thing.

For the first time in a long time, Kurama had come across a human that didn't desire power for solely personal reasons, or something as short-sighted as the glory of their clan. While Naruto wanted to actively find out what made him tick, Kurama wanted to discover for himself just what this kid was all about. He was having trouble with it.

What would help though, was giving him something to mull around, so that he could gauge his reaction to the actual things he said.

"**Well… when I say negative emotions are my thing, I mean that I'm extremely sensitive to concentrations of harmful intent. On active battlefields and other areas of general suffering, places where the nastier aspects of human character come out, I find myself drawn to them, whether I want to be there or not."**

"So you don't want to be in places like that?"

"**Yes, because I just love being drawn to the absolute stink-holes and cesspools of the continent,"** Kurama said sarcastically,** "I can't help it! That's how sensitive to those feelings I am! I can't avoid them!"**

Naruto flinched at the booming shout from Kurama and held a hand up defensively while cleaning his ears out with a pinky, "Ah, I was just asking. So that's why people say you're some sort of natural disaster," Seeing Kurama's confusion, Naruto clarified with a blush, "Well, I've been asking Kakashi about you and he said that the Kyuubi was always supposed to be some sort of harbinger of the end to places afflicted with misery. His words."

"**I've had humans do terrible things in mass numbers, cause outright atrocities, just to attract me to areas so that they could try to entrap me. I am woefully predictable in my movements because of my reaction to dark intent,"** Kurama explained with a heavy sigh, **"It was as if they believed that they could yoke me as though I were some garden-variety animal. It was a reason why I shut myself up inside of your island. I couldn't feel anything that far away from the mainland and under the ground."**

It was nice actually, on Uzu no Kuni. No real battles ever occurred there. The only clan that inhabited that place was the Uzumaki Clan, and they basically kept everything rather peaceful for the most part. It was significantly more so than anywhere else in the Elemental Nations.

While it only took the biggest and most horrible incidents to attract him nowadays, when he'd been younger it was quite easy to attract the wandering fox to places to the point where armed forces would do so and then flee while he finished the job that they started to get him there in the first place.

By the time he grew old and wise enough to avoid this to some extent his reputation was already set.

Naruto summed up the general sentiment on these matters in so many words, "Well that sucks."

"**Yes. Yes it does,"** Kurama muttered before looking around his surroundings, **"If it's any consolation, from within you I can't feel anything that's not directly around you, which means that bigger things don't affect me, like the Shukaku battle, or the Uchiha/Hyuuga incident,"** Those things weren't big enough to attract him from afar, but when he was already in the center of them there would have been ill effects,** "I haven't gone blood crazy since I've been in here, so at least there's that."**

There. That was something on the bright side at least. It was a start, if nothing else.

XxX

*THUNK!*

"Wow, he is _out_ of it."

"Indeed."

"All of that and he didn't even flinch. Do you want me to keep going Kakashi-sensei? I can't really fit anything else in around him."

"No, no. I'll go wake him up, just… let me enjoy this for a second. This is art."

Standing fifty yards away from Naruto, Kakashi and Tenten simply marveled at the sight that was their resident blond sitting against the trunk of a tree, his entire body defined closely with kunai, shuriken, and other assorted projectile weaponry around his person.

At first it was just something that she did while warming up when she noticed Naruto's glazed look in his eyes. Trying to rouse him from it so that he could warm up she decided to try and scare him. When he didn't flinch it was quite annoying, thus she kept going. Before too long Kakashi had born witness to this from behind her without her notice, and when she realized that he'd been there she was told to continue, much to her surprise.

Eventually, Naruto blinked rapidly, signifying his return to the realm of regular consciousness. He didn't even register the fact that the tree he'd been sitting against moments before now had a Naruto-shaped outline of weapons stuck to it, "What's up you guys?"

Tenten and Kakashi both thought that all he had to do was turn back around and he would have more than likely been horrified, angry, or some combination of the two.

Instead, Kakashi decided to ignore Tenten's impromptu target practice game altogether, "First, kunai-spinning exercise please," He almost twitched when he saw Naruto pluck a kunai right out of the tree behind him without turning around to demonstrate that he'd mastered the training. Apparently he'd been more aware than they'd thought, "Alright, that's great."

"Better be," Naruto groused, a kunai twirling in a blur by its point in the palm of his hand, "You know how many clones this killed trying to get this good back in the beginning? A lot. I had to keep replacing the twenty."

Tenten counted off on her fingers trying to add something up, "Ten days, times twenty clones…" She trailed off before she got her math dead-on and threw a kunai at Naruto in a fit that he dodged, "You did a half a year of training on a stupid exercise in under two weeks! What the hell? Teach me how to do that!"

"You could only make one without splitting your chakra too much."

"That's still twice the training on a technique I could learn in half the time!"

Kakashi let out a sigh as he knew that this was going to come up eventually. Comparing Naruto's chakra to Tenten's just wasn't a fair fight. If Tenten's chakra supply was like a filled tank, Naruto's was more akin to a lake. If you split Tenten's chakra in half for a Shadow Clone that would halve the tank, which was significant. If you split Naruto's in half for the same thing you would just have two fucking lakes instead of one.

Even if Naruto's chakra was split twenty ways for the full breadth of his Shadow Clone Jutsu, he and his clones still had so much more chakra than Tenten that it wasn't even close and it wasn't even fair. Hell, he still had more chakra than Kakashi did, even with his chakra split twenty ways.

With a frown, Naruto considered Tenten's grievance and figured that she had a point. He wanted to get himself up to snuff faster, and he could definitely understand why she would as well. If they could learn the techniques they were taught at a faster rate from clone repetition that would give them time to focus on other things that you couldn't do with clones.

"Alright, come here. I'll teach it to you," Naruto said, getting a grin out of Tenten as he gestured for her to come closer.

"Naruto…" Kakashi said in warning. He didn't want her getting hurt with a jutsu that her body wasn't up for. While it wasn't the forbidden version that definitely would have killed her, it was still very dangerous for the wrong person.

"She's got a point Kakashi," Naruto urged, "You can do it, I can do it. Why not her too? Even if she can only make one, that's still better than none."

He wanted to get strong enough to be worth something to his mother and to a lesser extent his father. He didn't want to be left behind. In that sense he could understand why Tenten was put out by the idea of Naruto finding a way to get better when he absolutely needed the results and her having to play catch up just like him, only without the benefit of such a method to improve.

Besides, she was his best friend, and he wanted her to be with him every step of the way, and that didn't mean falling behind.

Kakashi simply let out a sigh in the end. As if he could chastise them for having a dangerous technique. He had his fair share of his own by the time he was their age. He couldn't treat them with a double standard over something like this when the rest of the world would kill them if they were enemies. It was probably a way of showing that he cared to ensure that he pushed them to be as good as they could be, and they could be very, very good.

He could oversee things and make sure it was safe though.

"Okay," Naruto said, showing Tenten the cross-fingered hand-seal she'd need to commit to memory to execute the jutsu, "This is the only hand-seal that you need to know, and… well…" He stalled, trying to think of a good way to explain the actual feeling of using the jutsu, "…You're doing it right when it feels like your whole body is pushing out chakra."

Really? That sounded simple enough.

Tenten shrugged and began the jutsu process before Naruto quickly stopped her, "What?"

"That's too much," He said, sighing in relief that she didn't go through with the jutsu, "If you're making one, just use enough to feel like it's running through your body. Don't flare it like you did. If you do that your body'll take that as you trying to make as many as you can or as many as the jutsu'll let you do."

"Like I said," Kakashi pointed out, "Be careful if you're going to learn this jutsu at all. Now let's get some work done. We've got somewhere to be, and I want to start Naruto on something that Minato-sama is going to teach him anyway."

XxX

(Central Hi no Kuni – Senju Clan Headquarters)

The last few days had been annoying as far as the female head of the Senju Clan was concerned. Sending one of her best out only ended with him being rebuked. Tenzo had reported to her from a Senju outpost closer to the outskirts of the country and informed her on their failure to exterminate their target due to the appearance of Namikaze Minato.

…Her granduncle's biggest mistake in the last years of his last years of his long life was dangling the carrot of Hiraishin no Jutsu over the head of the freelancer ninjas for an expendable squad to go in and die for their cause against the Uchiha.

It worked, but then again how were they supposed to know that the then no-name ninja Minato was good enough to overcome the extermination squad in the aftermath?

She should have taken it upon herself to split his skull before he became too cagy to pin down in one area, but _no one _ever thought there would be another that could utilize Hiraishin no Jutsu solo. It took three different users just to endure the space-time strain that teleportation was supposed to put on the body, and they'd never even taught him how to make the markers for the technique.

Damn it.

With another punch to a towering rock monolith she turned it to rubble and dusted off her fist accordingly. Physical exertion was always a good way to calm one's self down, and what had once been a very scenic rock garden of beautifully raked sand and ornate rock structures was now a miniature wasteland.

"Nagato had better get his ducks in a row before it's too late," Tsunade grumbled aloud as she was attended to by her attendant after a rather destructive training session to blow off some steam, "If something happens because of this and we end up going into a larger war, we won't be the ones handling the lion's share of the fighting this time. This is the Uzumaki Clan's mess."

The Uzumaki Clan had an important place in the ninja world. Because of that, and because of the ties established by Hashirama Senju and Uzumaki Mito they were bonded, but it wasn't a free card for the Senju Clan to clean up the messes of their 'little sibling' clan. They had enough of their own issues at the moment, such as a funding problem.

If they had to fight another big-time conflict like the one they had taken part in less than five years ago it would eat away at a great chunk of what was left of their deeper assets, win or lose, unless they won in a quick less-than-costly manner.

"Tsunade you should really tone it down," She heard as she reentered the main building of the main Senju stronghold. Most anyone else saying that would have ended with them being put through a wall or five. Not this man however, "Think about the poor people that have to readjust that rock garden every time after you finish your little physical training sessions."

"Sword of Damocles dear brother," Tsunade responded, turning around to face the person that had spoken up to her. A man in his early forties with short light brown hair, he possessed sharp brown eyes and a jagged scar on his cheek. He wore a green loose top with a lavender shroud over his shoulders, as well as dark green pants. At his hip he carried a sword hilt, "It's easy to say something like that when you don't have to be held accountable to the responsibilities of leadership."

The man rolled his eyes and grabbed Tsunade in a shoulder hug, "You keep bringing that up, like anyone is supposed to know an obscure reference like that."

"Not 'anyone', just you," Tsunade amended, carefully picking the hand around her shoulders off, "What do you want Nawaki?"

After concluding his greeting to his elder sister, Nawaki turned rather serious in his approach, "I know you're all bent out of shape over the Uzumaki jinchuuriki situation, but there are more important matters at hand. If things turn into a biju arms race we've got the advantage, you know that."

"I know, it's still not something that I want to have to turn to just to keep an edge, now what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong per se, it's just that there's work to be done, and one boy that'll probably get himself killed before he ever becomes a problem isn't worth the trouble that diverting ninjas as good as Tenzo after him would bring."

Tsunade growled at Nawaki and the point that he had. Naruto _was_ just one little boy. Even if he was a jinchuuriki, thus far no one knew exactly what that meant for him, especially him himself from Tenzo's report on how he tried to fight him. The biju within him never came into play once.

"What work needs to be done?" Tsunade asked, letting her temper settle down. There wasn't anything to get fired up about at the moment.

"Well we need to refill our coffers first of all," Nawaki pointed out, rubbing an index finger and a thumb together, "We're still reeling from the last open war with the Uchiha that ended in the stalemate, and from taking down the Hagoromo Clan a few years after that. Even if that win netted us all of their business, it hasn't been enough to bring our funds back up to what it had been before."

"Ideas?"

"Well you could always try your hand at high-stakes gambling again. Oh wait, I know. Sell grandfather's necklace?" Nawaki offered jokingly, getting a growl from his older sister, "I'm kidding! Besides, there are all sorts of ways to make money to supplement our mission income. We don't have to hike up our prices and risk turning customers away."

"Oh, Kami, you can't be serious," Tsunade droned, already knowing where this was going, "Not another one of these idiotic treasure hunts of yours."

"Idiotic, right, because I _didn't_ find one of the treasured tools of the Rikudou Sennin on my very first try." Thus earning him the title of Nawaki the Hunter. Over the years in addition to developing into a skilled shinobi, he'd developed the reputation of a man that could go anywhere and find anyone or anything, no matter what

"Finding legendary items isn't going to help us now, because why would we sell them to people that would turn around and use them on us?" Tsunade pointed out, "You're good at finding what no one else can find, but unless it'll turn us a profit Nawaki, I need you back in the field working missions again. You're a big figure in the clan."

Tsunade began to walk away and back to her daily work until Nawaki's voice stopped her again. Stopped her dead in her tracks.

"Kakuzu's Money Pit."

Hearing someone that could find the impossible speak of that much of a concentration of money sent a shiver down her spine. With that much money she could theoretically gamble high-stakes for life and never run out. More productively, they could fund any amount of anything that they wanted.

"You're kidding," Tsunade said in disbelief, "That's a legend that's been around ever since grandfather was alive. No one has that much money. It's impossible."

"Kakuzu's been an in-demand, top-of-the-line ninja since back in grandfather's time," Nawaki argued in return, defending his expedition's validity, "He's still alive, still as active as he was seventy years ago, and he's notoriously frugal. Of all the things we've seen in the world, are you really going to tell me that you don't believe in one person hoarding enough assets to wage a lifetime of full-scale wars?"

It wasn't. But just like how every grey cloud had a silver lining, every silver cloud had a grey lining, "You're telling me this because you have something concrete, but you're leaving something big out so you can go on the search."

Damn it. His sister knew him too well.

"Well, apparently Kakuzu doesn't like having his money out in one place, even if it is well hidden, but he doesn't like having it split up either so he won't separate it into different places. It's all in one mother lode. He looked into a banker, and when that didn't work out for various reasons, he kind of covered his tracks."

"By killing him in a blood rage."

"Yeah, basically. But the banker had a few assistants that died as well. One managed to avoid it, and that's the link to get started."

"You're still not telling me the problem yet."

"I'm not the only one that's putting all of this together."

Which meant that he wasn't the only one that would end up looking for Kakuzu's Money Pit.

XxX

(East Coast of Hi no Kuni)

"Are you sure you're alright with this plan sensei?" Minato asked out of courtesy. Sure, it was his operation to go into the Uzumaki Clan's home base, but Jiraiya would be the one handling the most dangerous portion of it all; the distraction part. Minato didn't want to put his teacher in a position where he'd be in peril that he couldn't handle, "We can change things up if you like, maybe take a little more time to try and set up a better out for you."

"Meh, don't worry about it. If I can't buy you a window of opportunity I really don't deserve to be thought of as being so awesome. Just remember, you'd better be moving at the speed of sound when you bolt in, because those Mind's Eye of the Kagura users are no joke when it comes to sensing. They'll lock onto you in a heartbeat if you're not moving fast enough."

"I know," Minato said, "I lived in Uzu no Kuni for four years before Naruto was born. I know what makes these people tick."

"I'd rather hear about what makes your wife tick if you know what I mean," Jiraiya said, elbowing Minato in his side, "Huh? Huh? You know what I mean? You get what I'm talking about? Because in case you did I mean that I want to know what gets your wife-."

"-Thank you sensei," Minato cut him off sharply before coughing and getting serious once more as he looked out at the ocean, "Soon enough I'll be seeing her again eh? I don't want to be the kind of guy that looks ahead when there's still some serious work to be done, but damn… ten years. You know, you don't have to follow me in for this."

"Of course I do. As a matter of fact, I think we should have brought more people, but you've got some sort of complex when it comes to getting other people involved in your problems."

"I'm a hands-on kind of guy I guess."

A grin spread across Jiraiya's face as he set a hand on Minato's shoulder, "Speaking of hands-on, back to your wife-."

"Not the time sensei."

XxX

(With Naruto – Northern Hi no Kuni)

"Minato-sama isn't just doing these things on his own," Kakashi explained as he and his younger companions jumped through the tree branches of a heavily forested area. They hadn't seen a road or a clearing in hours and were quite thoroughly lost. They could barely see the sun poking through the canopy leaves above, "It would be impossible to actually bring about the sort of place he wants to create without an extensive number of support from the affluent clans in the world."

Having listened to Kakashi's lecture for quite some time as they'd been traveling, Tenten frowned at the way he was explaining things, "But that's hard to do right? Clans don't really think anything of people like Minato-sama," '…Or me.'

As was the existence of clanless ninjas. It was pretty unfair, but that was the way it was.

It was a catch-22. You were either a clanless ninja and you were largely ignored by all as worthless until you stepped on a few too many toes and became a problem, or you could be born to a clan and be automatically pitted against basically every other clan in existence around yours.

Kakashi could hear the touch of self-loathing in the tail end of Tenten's remark, but decided to leave that for later, "Maybe so, but there are a fair share of clans that can think pragmatically in the regard of the benefits of such a thing. We have another mission and we need help."

Naruto's ears perked up at the sound of seemingly something else coming their way work-wise, "A new mission? What? When?"

"It's from Jiraiya-sama actually," Kakashi said with an eye-smile in the direction of his pair of kids, "It's meant to really take your mind off of your mother and father for a short while, but the way I see it, it's extremely important in its own right. I'll tell you more when we reach our destination."

"Well where is that? At the end of this forest?" Because for the life of him he couldn't see how anyone could live in that kind of place without clearing out some kind of land for themselves, "How long is it gonna take to get there?"

"It won't take that much longer, because the people we're going to see live _in_ this forest," Kakashi answered, "This territory is under the protection of the Aburame Clan, a very special grouping of ninjas with a close relationship to insects. So close that this place is something of a preserve for forest-dwelling insects." Stopping for a moment, Kakashi pointed out an extremely subtle insect carving in the bark, "Some are quite dangerous, so you have to follow a very particular path to reach them, or else you'll draw their wrath."

"You mean the wrath of the Aburame Clan?" Tenten questioned.

"Well, them too. I was talking more about the insects in this case though. Some of those can be quite nasty. I'm talking 'leeches that can drain human beings dry in less than two minutes' kind of nasty."

Oh, so that was why he told them to follow his path as closely as they could when they entered the forest. Yeah, that could have ended badly.

Kakashi brought them to a landing on the ground where they found many well-hidden dwellings hidden amongst the trunks of the trees. Wow. That was actually a pretty cool way to hide homes. Naruto wondered how many they'd actually passed underneath them all that time, 'We would have never seen any of these if we hadn't come down here.'

And yet there were multiple men and women of this clan, going about their day, moving about their settlement, sitting outside, some with an insect or two on the end of their fingers for whatever reason.

The Aburame Clan didn't tend to vary too severely in appearance. Mostly they kept the bottom portion of their faces covered with high-collared clothing and wore some sort of dark-lensed eyewear to conceal their eyes. They kept their bodies very well covered and seemed to keep a universally aloof demeanor. Even the intrusion of complete strangers didn't seem to bear much more than a passing glance from them.

Silently following after Kakashi, they watched as a man came forth from one of the dwellings to greet him. An older man in his late thirties, he had bushy brown hair and a thin mustache along with dark sunglasses that had a small tassel hanging from them. Wearing a long, grey high-collared long-sleeved top with olive pants, he had a gourd on his back somewhat similar to Gaara's in a way.

Without hesitating, Kakashi reached his hand out and found it quickly shaken by the man before him, "Aburame-sama," Kakashi greeted, getting a silent nod from the man, "Kids, this is the leader of the Aburame Clan, Aburame Shibi."

Shibi took a moment to regard the youngsters before nodding to them as well, getting them to wave and smile nervously at him. They didn't know what to make of any of this, but they were as nice as they could be given their confusion.

"I've already been informed that Jiraiya-san's requested the assistance of my clan with something," Shibi said in a very bland and base tone of speaking, "Tell me, do you require a specialist, or any sort of ninja in particular?"

Kakashi shook his head, "No need for requesting anyone that would disrupt your clan activities too much. I'd only ask you for a ninja that you trust, and I'll do the same."

"Of course," Shibi stoically agreed, "We believe in the idea of the village where people of all sorts of clans can live in peace. It would be our honor to assist Minato-san in any way he requires. If you have no qualms against it I have already selected a candidate to assist you. I want my son to accompany you."

'Wow. I wonder how strong this guy's son would be if he's volunteering him for something,' Looking around, Tenten didn't see many Aburame that seemed set to come forward and work, but instead she managed to eagle-eye a boy crouching by a set of shrubs beneath a great tree, a small insect standing on the tip of his finger.

He wore a far lighter colored version of the lower-face concealing shirt that Shibi wore and had the same bushy brown hair as the man in question as well as a pair of round-framed sunglasses covering his eyes. Man, how could they see while wearing sunglasses in such a low-light setting?

Naruto was busy looking around and wondering what kind of methods these people used to fight. They had to be damn good ninjas in their own way if they were able to build a place for themselves in a forest that could have been so potentially dangerous for anyone else. Those guys are kind of odd, but if Kakashi said that they were right that was all he needed he guessed.

Kakashi had his jerk moments, but he had the confidence of his tagalongs to the utmost degree. What he said went, because he'd never led them astray before.

Shibi's gaze panned over to the boy that Tenten had picked out off to the side at a distance before he called out to him, "Shino, come here. I want you to meet Hatake Kakashi-san and his students. You'll be going with them for the time being. I want you to use this as a chance to see just how Minato-san's concept can work, with people so different coming together."

"Yes father," Shino replied with an air of collected acceptance and self-assurance.

It was hard for Tenten to believe at first that this was who Shibi would have been referring to as the sort of candidate that would be fit for a mission with people that he didn't know, but then she realized that the same 'ageism' thing she'd lambasted Kakashi for when it came to her and being given the chance to learn Kage Bunshin no Jutsu applied here as well. She had automatically assumed that someone being young was an automatic mark of skill.

'If nothing else I should give him a shot,' Tenten thought to herself, 'If it were me I know I'd want the same thing.'

"This is my son Shino," Shibi informed them, "If I'm correct in my estimation on-sight, he should be around the same age as the children with you. I can assure you that he is a pride to our clan and will serve well under your command."

He definitely seemed to be an odd one though from how he slowly walked over, barely a movement to his head to indicate that he'd even acknowledged that Naruto and Tenten existed. Instead he moved right up to Kakashi and gave him a slight bow, "Greetings Hatake-san. I've been told much about your capabilities and look forward to working with you on the search mission. I have already been informed of the situation."

What a cool demeanor. Even Neji didn't come off as this calm and collected. Then again, the whole clan seemed to be of that ilk from the small sample size they had to go off of.

"Well we haven't. There's a search mission?" Naruto remarked, throwing his hands up behind his neck only for Shino to glance at him for a split-second and then only regard Kakashi once more, "Oi, did he just ignore me?" He asked Tenten who shrugged and shook her head.

Shibi addressed Kakashi once more, "Godspeed, and may good fortune await you on your mission."

By now it was almost like something of an inside joke that Naruto and Tenten weren't privy to, and it was none too amusing to either of them to be left out of the loop, "What mission?" They both asked in stereo, gritting their teeth.

Ignoring their temperament, Kakashi turned to the two of them and waved his hands spiritedly, face expressionless while speaking in a monotone sing-song voice, "Briefing ti~me."

XxX

(A Few Hours Later)

It was kind of odd how Shino and his father had parted with a sparse farewell and a wishing of luck. Naruto wasn't necessarily an expert on father-son relations, but from watching other children he'd seen and from interacting with Minato and seeing how much emotion the man put into that one meeting he felt it was a little off.

And then there was Shino himself.

Despite apparently being new to the group and along for the ride as some sort of pact with Minato, he really kept to himself. He hadn't even really introduced himself to anyone other than Kakashi and seemed to more or less be accepting Naruto and Tenten's presence in the basest way possible.

Also, he was a few inches taller than Naruto to the point that it was noticeable. That was sort of annoying. He even dwarfed Tenten to a degree, though that didn't matter much to her at all if she even noticed it.

…Man, he had problems to get hung up on the guy's height didn't he?

Either way, after making it a short way outside of the insect preserve that was the home of the Aburame Clan, Kakashi sat them down side by side to talk to them. All three looked up at him, Naruto and Tenten doing so expectantly, the former with a rubber ball in his hand as he tried to multitask and pop it with his chakra.

Thus far it was common knowledge between the three younger ninjas that Minato wanted to form a community where ninjas wouldn't be bound to fight against each other in constant warfare because of clan ties. Where children wouldn't grow to consider murder as their first choice when faced with someone different from them in some way.

That was the easy part. What no one had explained to them was just what really went into making all of that happen. You couldn't just plant a flag, erect a few buildings and declare it, 'Ninjaville: come one, come all, and don't kill each other.'

There was far more that went into forming a community based at its core at bringing battle-hungry, out-for-self, military families together under a concrete, long-standing peace than simply saying there was a place like that somewhere that existed with an open-door policy. There was more to it than even Kakashi knew.

The easiest thing to convey as to the hows and whys of settlement construction in this instance however was the concept of the role that money played in it. Which was a coincidence, because obtaining money was the most straightforward part of a venture such as this. You worked for it or you took it, simple as that. Things got frustratingly more complex after you obtained the necessary capital, so it wasn't worth going into yet.

So Kakashi had to explain the concept of economics and the factors of forming a thriving community in order to get to the part where he explained what they would be doing to help Minato secure that portion of his ambition. Naruto wanted to know how he could help his old man out, so he listened until it was understood.

Then there was the matter of what they were going to do to get it all in one fell swoop.

"What do you kids know of the ninja Kakuzu?" Kakashi asked to start things out. In return he only got blank looks from the two that he had become accustomed to, "…Alright, not like I was really expecting much there to begin with."

Shino however, was more than willing to answer, "Who is Kakuzu you ask? He is an exceedingly powerful man, also noted as perhaps the wealthiest man in the entire world by the way he stockpiles his funds. No one has ever seen or counted his gains, but it has been said that Kakuzu has enough money to buy himself an entire country if he so wished, with a sizeable amount of money left over, if-."

"-If only he weren't so cheap. Very good," Kakashi remarked before launching into his explanation, "Jiraiya-sama has recently come into some very prudent information in regards to Kakuzu, and as it turns out we are going to be 'borrowing' a good portion of money from him."

"Really?" Tenten was skeptical to say the least. They'd just gotten through saying that the guy was cheap, so how would they borrow anything from him?

"No. Not really. We're going to be finding his hidden stash and taking all of it that we can to get what we need to help fund Minato-sama's village goal," Kakashi admitted bluntly, "Are you kidding? 'Borrow'? That man would kill you before he'd even cough up 100 ryo."

Once again, a lightbulb went off in Naruto's head after hearing the name Kakuzu enough and his face lit up in recognition, "Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute… you mean Kakuzu, as in 'Kakuzu's Money Pit' Kakuzu? Like the bedtime story? That's real?"

That was just supposed to be a warning story for kids about knowing who to trust, and how to tread around dangerous people, and how certain decisions can make you miserable despite the fact that you should theoretically have everything in the world. All of that was supposed to be crap that adults tried to offload on their children to try and shape their system of ethics and morals.

"Oh, it's real. It's really real," Kakashi pointed out, watching Naruto's eyes go wide, "You'll find out that every single legend in our ninja world is to some extent true and on the up-and-up. We traditionally aren't very imaginative people outside of combat I'm afraid."

"But in the story, Kakuzu got trapped in his hiding place and became some sort of berserk, feral green-eyed monster man that'll kill anyone that finds his stash… even if they find it by accident!" Naruto pointed out, "Even Senju Hashirama couldn't kill him."

"Well the part where he's trapped with his riches isn't true. He still does missions. He actually only goes to his hiding place to add more money to it," Kakashi said, scratching his face idly under his mask, "He _will_ try to massacre anyone that finds it though. That's how Jiraiya-sama found this out. A banker's employee survived one of Kakuzu's rages against her manager, and one of Jiraiya-sama's contacts overheard things from her. It was simply too rich of an opportunity to ignore."

"An opportunity? Perhaps. If it is I believe that our window is very small," Shino added on after the fact, "I was told to anticipate the prospect of combat, because if we were able to obtain this information, who knows who else has it as of now?"

There were a lot of unsavory elements out there, and they all had the potential to find out everything that someone else already knew when it came to world events. People talked, people heard things, people took those things to people that would pay them a boatload of money.

From that point it was all a matter of which camp could get itself in gear the fastest and move on the information.

Alright! This was the kind of ninja work that Naruto had always wanted to get into. Outmaneuvering the other guy, taking what you need under the nose of the other guys, making off into the night and savoring the fruits of your labor, the spoils of your victory.

It was _way_ better in theory than fighting biju on a wide open, sandy battlefield. Forget that noise. The next battlefield Naruto ever saw would be one too many. This was workable though. A real mission. Actual ninja work. He loved working for the ramen cart, but that wasn't what he'd been expecting when he became a shinobi.

"Well what are we waitin' for!?" Naruto said, grinning up a storm as he could hardly sit still out of sheer excitement, "We've gotta get to it first, so where to?"

Shino's face didn't change, even when Tenten leaned in and whispered to him, "When his accent breaks that means he's worked up."

"Understood," The young Aburame droned dully in return.

XxX

(Uzu no Kuni – Uzumaki Clan Village – Kushina's House)

As time waned and she had done nothing other than exist in the clan leader's mansion, Kushina was no longer under house arrest. She wasn't allowed to leave the clan half of the village and was under around-the-clock surveillance, still marking her status as a political prisoner, but at least she could return home.

Her empty home. Her home without her husband, and while she'd been without him for years it truly sank in that she was alone when she checked Naruto's room. It was like a heartbreaking museum of her only child that had gone the route of her beloved.

Now what?

Her husband and son had been forced away for separate reasons ten years apart. The only clan members in the village that didn't treat her like a leper were her little niece Karin and Nagato. What could she do now, take missions? No, even if she would be allowed to take them what would she fight for? She wasn't exactly strong on clan pride these days.

"This is just sad," Kushina said to herself, leaning on the doorframe of Naruto's room as she stared inside. She shook her head blew a few strands of hair out of her face before moving along, "I'd cry if it wouldn't be so damn pathetic."

Walking back into her kitchen, Kushina stopped when she noticed something on her table that was completely clear except for one item. One paper flower.

She slowly picked it up and studied it closely, already knowing where it had come from. Before she could even ponder crushing it in her hand, it floated out of her palm and off behind her. There was no wind in that room. No air conditioning. No fan going.

With a sigh, Kushina turned around to see Konan capture the flower in her hand casually, "Most people knock and wait to be invited in when they want to enter someone else's home."

"Perhaps," Konan said coolly as she unfolded the flower using nothing more than her chakra as she manipulated it into all other sorts of forms to suit her liking, "But some people simply don't care if you want them there or not. Some people have more important things to do than play to your nonexistent sense of rights."

A click of Kushina's tongue was the immediate response. She had never received any respect from this woman in all the time that she had known her, and she definitely hadn't been expecting it now of all times, but it was still vexing. Konan had insulted her turn after turn, and had volunteered to kill her only child.

It was then that Konan felt that something inside of the Uzumaki Clan woman had broken.

The most chillingly pleasant smile that Kushina had ever given another human being in her life found its way to her face as she disarmingly held her hands behind her back, "Just to be clear, I _will_ maim you with my bare hands. You do realize that don't you?" She asked in the sweetest tone of voice imaginable, "The guards that _think_ they're hiding from me outside are going to get to me. I know that. But the question is, can they get to me faster than I can get to you?"

"Pardon?" Konan raised an eyebrow in interest.

Kushina had no problems clarifying for her, just to be clear. She was considerate like that, "If I get to you even two seconds before they get to me, I'm going to hurt you so badly that Nagato can't fix you."

Not intimidated in the slightest despite Kushina's complete assurance that she would be more than happy with attempting to kill her and dealing with whatever fallout may come her way as a result, Konan hardly even blinked. She didn't say anything actually.

That had not been what Kushina had been expecting. The next time she had even expected to see Konan again, the first words she'd expected to come out of her mouth would have alluded spitefully to the fact that she had ended her baby's life.

None of that ever occurred though, no matter how long she waited for it.

Kushina came within close proximity, almost nose-to-nose as she studied the woman's face. A ghost of a smile slowly made its way to the lovely redhead's face that was openly taunting, "You didn't kill him," It wasn't a question. It was a statement, "It wasn't that you didn't find him, because I know that you did. You don't have to tell me that you did. No, you had him and you couldn't get the job done… could you?"

It grated Konan more than Kushina could ever possibly know. Or she did know, which was why she had chosen to try and bait her. It wasn't complex as to why she was doing so either. Kushina wanted an excuse to fight. She wanted one so badly, to vent, and were it not for extenuating circumstances she would have gotten Konan to oblige her.

If she killed Kushina, Konan knew that Nagato would never forgive her, and it was not worth the temporary feeling of satisfaction she would get from taking a person that had no position to taunt her from down yet another notch, "…I can see exactly how much of you rubbed off on Naruto. He's like a little boy version of you. You have no idea how easy it was to try and see him with your face. It scared me how easy it was to want to kill someone, a child, that I should have nothing against."

"Well actually, I can see how it's easy because he has my face," Kushina jibed back in return, sitting down at her table with a large, bright Naruto-esque grin on her face as she framed it for Konan to plainly see, "He might have gotten the lion's share of Minato's features, but the shape of his face and his proportions, that's all me."

Konan was done mincing words with this woman. Her mind games that she'd been playing had finally been reversed, "Let's cut through the small talk and the tense sniping at each other shall we? I'm only going to ask you this question once. Tell me how to fight Namikaze Minato."

Hearing that the stoic blue-haired kunoichi had brought up her estranged husband, Kushina put two and two together, causing her heart to swell. It didn't matter how knotted up she'd felt for the past plus two months, she couldn't help but smile.

And with that smile and her improved attitude, the biting wit returned.

"Well for starters… have you tried _not_ fighting Minato?" Kushina said with a fake expression of curiosity, "That usually seems to work for people that like not being dead."

"I'll keep that in mind the next time I have Naruto set for the executioner's block. I'll have to make sure there aren't so many distractions around to keep me from slitting his throat."

"Mmm, you should be careful with that. I can only imagine how nasty your paper cuts must be compared to everyone else's."

Konan growled in exasperation and took a step forward just to feel the floor beneath her shake. She stopped at the sight of Kushina leisurely raising her right hand and balling a fist, a content, lazy expression showing, "You wouldn't use that jutsu to trap us both here just to fight with me uninterrupted. Even if you won, and you wouldn't by the way, you would be condemned."

It wouldn't have mattered if Nagato favored Kushina or not, Kushina would have been punished, and Konan knew that she was aware of it.

"I wouldn't use that jutsu?" Kushina asked rhetorically before speaking slowly and deliberately, "Listen to me. I would destroy my own home, where I've lived for my entire life, where my son lives, where I made love with my dear husband who gifted me with child, where I have so many wonderful memories. I would destroy this home and the property that it sits on in a heartbeat if you gave me a reason to fight you, and I don't care if I'd win or what Nagato would do afterwards."

This woman was insane, and yet Konan understood her completely.

Konan hated Kushina to such a degree that she would have felt the same if the roles were reversed, but she hadn't been certain that it was completely mutual until right then. It clearly was, "You can't be serious," She could barely say over the sound of infinite chains jangling horribly, "You are."

"Konan… look in my eyes and you tell me-," Kushina lifted her hand a bit higher, causing the floors and the walls to shake horribly, knocking down pictures, dishes, and entire bookcases, "-_Am I lying?_"

The paper-shaping kunoichi took a step back and instantly the shaking lessened in severity. Narrowing her eyes at Kushina, she wrinkled her nose in distaste at her least favorite person in the world, "I don't know where you think the rules don't apply to you because of Nagato-sama's feelings-."

"No, it's not that I think the rules don't apply to me," Kushina cut her off smoothly, "It's just that I really don't care about any demand, order, or threat that comes out of your mouth. It's really wearing thin with me."

"Who do you think you are?"

"That's my line," Kushina growled, "You think you have some kind of clout over me because the rest of the clan respect you and love you for being Nagato's sentinel, but you're not Nagato, I'm not the rest of the clan, and I don't care if you're his favorite. You're not clan head, so what you say means less than nothing to me," Kushina spat venomously, "Now anytime you want to think that you can make me do anything again, please, by all means, come back anytime and feel free-. No, feel _encouraged_ to try," She finally let her hand fall, allowing the shaking of her domicile and the sound of chains to cease.

If you walked by the property just in passing, the sheer hatred and killing intent between the two women would have strangled an unprepared person on the spot. If a hair fell out of place they would have taken it as a sign from the universe to go at one another's throats.

This was deep-seated animosity that had more than one backstory to it, and they were all unpleasant.

Konan turned her back with only the sound of her heels clicking the floor as she walked away.

Before departing however, Konan did manage to say one last thing quietly that almost shook Kushina up, "…You're Nagato-sama's favorite." 'You always were.'

How did you react to that? Kushina didn't even want to think of how. She didn't even put forth the effort to try, "…Get out of my house."

Konan promptly vanished in a flurry of scattered papers, and Kushina simply looked around at the mess she'd made of her own place. She'd clean it up later however, because she really wasn't in the mood any longer.

"I hate that bitch."

The feeling was mutual.

XxX

(Northern Hi no Kuni)

Kakashi's plan was quite simple as to how they were going to obtain the services of the young bank employee that had survived Kakuzu's wrath. As the last loose end that could possibly help them get a bead on the actual location of his riches, her cooperation was a necessity.

Therefore his approach was meant to leave no room for refusal on her part. It was rather simple all things considered. He felt that keeping it basic here was for the best.

"You're going to kidnap her and then brainwash her?" Tenten quietly asked, hiding in the foliage along the ground as she and Kakashi slowly approached their target location, "That's horrible Kakashi-sensei! This isn't a ninja, soldier, or a bandit we're talking about here."

"Well it might not even necessarily be in that order. I might brainwash her first, then kidnap her," Kakashi casually reasoned, "I don't see the problem since we're going to bring her back after we find what we need. I'll even wipe her memory clean of any traumatic events she might experience along the way, because I'm a nice guy like that."

That moment. The moment when you realize that your mentor carelessly walks the fine line between being a responsible role model and being an awful, awful person: it's a pretty strong one.

Tenten didn't know quite how to respond to that, and she didn't know what exactly she had the problem with. The kidnapping, the brainwashing, or the memory-wiping, '…Probably the brainwashing. I don't mind everything else that much.'

Reaching position where they could conceal themselves and get a view of a small cottage in a tiny forest clearing, it was a matter of waiting for Shino and Naruto to get in position and signal them before proceeding from there.

XxX

(Meanwhile – With Naruto)

"So why are we not just knocking on this person's door and asking for help?" Naruto asked, laying underneath a bush with Shino as they eyed the cottage from a different perspective than Kakashi's and Tenten's, "Is it just me, or does that seem like a way easier approach?"

"Hatake-san is a shinobi with at least ten times your experience," Shino replied straightforwardly, eyes clad in sunglasses as he stared intently at the cottage, "I wouldn't expect you to understand the reasoning for his orders."

Naruto wasn't sure if Shino was just that abrasive without knowing it, or if he plain didn't like him, but it wasn't the first time he'd said something of that nature, "Okay, you tell me then if you're so smart. Why is this better?"

"…"

That sweet sound of silence wasn't Shino's normal operating method of silence. It was the kind that you heard when someone was at a loss for words, and it was glorious, "…Don't worry, I'll wait."

A small insect flew Shino's way and landed on an index finger that he extended for his winged ally. It beat its wings a bit before flying up and dancing in the air for Shino to clearly see. Whatever this was meant to convey clearly caused his eyebrows to raise behind his glasses.

This was his surprised face. It wasn't much, but it was the most you'd be able to get out of him in regards to that particular emotion.

"We have a problem," Shino said gravely, "We need to inform Kakashi-san to move toward the cottage now-," Before he could ask Naruto to go and be a runner for him or volunteer himself, Naruto created a clone to head off and tell Kakashi in their place, "Hmm, useful."

"Me, useful?" Naruto asked rhetorically, "You're the one that did recon on the house with a bug. How can I do that?"

"You can't, and I'm certain that you don't want to know how I myself am able to," Shino insisted, "Most people don't. But either way, follow my lead."

Naruto let it drop and before too long his blurry form could be seen moving with Shino to the side wall of the house, keeping out of sight of the window before pinning themselves against the surface. Naruto ensured that he had eye contact with Shino before pointing to both sides of the house questioningly. Front or back was the question of the hour.

Shino lifted his hand flat and pointed to the open side of his hand to indicate front. Getting a nod from Naruto, both slowly crept to the front on both sides of the door, staying low. Looking around the clearing closely, Naruto crossed his arms and clapped his shoulders twice to signal Tenten and Kakashi. He knew that they would be watching due to his clone dispelling.

It would take a matter of seconds due to him signaling them to move to the back, and as Naruto and Shino waited to give them a moment the two had to stop and marvel at the fact that the two of them meshed fairly well despite knowing almost nothing about each other.

Somewhat thrown off by Naruto's ability to actually be prepared to work, he masked this by adjusting his glasses on his face. He had honestly deemed Naruto as somewhat incompetent due to first impressions.

'Then again, he is a clan child if the crest on his shirt is to be believed,' That didn't always mean that a ninja would be good, but it did mean that there was a better chance of getting one that was, 'I need to withhold judgment before I can make a fair assessment on him and his friend.'

Either way, for the time being at least they had to work together.

"What's in there?" Naruto whispered to Shino. Communication clearly wasn't the odd boy's strongest point, but they were moving off of his suggestion and he hadn't even expressed what was wrong.

Instead of answering, Shino shook his head and opened the door, slipping inside with Naruto following. Upon doing so, Naruto quickly wished he hadn't.

The cottage was simply one room, modestly furnished with a table, a corner kitchen, a small study area. The layout wasn't what had to be noted however. The four dead bodies on the floor were. The floor was stained with pools of dried blood from the deceased.

From the back, Kakashi and Tenten entered, the latter covering her nose and mouth at the smell. The bodies had been there for quite some time, and if the sight of them hadn't been unpleasant enough, the smell pushed it over the top.

"There was an attack," Shino said, stating the obvious, "We were not the first ones here. What clan were they from?"

Kakashi barely spared them a glance before answering, "They're not ninjas. They're just hired enforcers. Probably meant to be used as a diversion," The ninja armor covering their torsos was a nice touch, but it was probably only given to the men as a show of confidence from the outsourcing clan so that they'd do their job confidently.

It was a practice that many clans readily used. They would hire freelance ninjas and local ignorant roughnecks willing to shed blood for a buck as cannon fodder to try and attack a target or infiltrate a stronghold. It was a pragmatic approach that could do a number of things given the situation. They could expose possible enemy reactions to given scenarios, allowing them to plan. They could cause a person or party to flee, which could give them an opening to strike. The second way to use the expendable bodies was what this seemed like.

There was something wrong though by Kakashi's watch.

"…I'd say that whoever killed these people is still around."

The door to the refrigerator in the house popped open just a crack, drawing everyone's attention long enough for the doors to slam shut. A folding panel on the table out of sight of the refrigerator flipped up and fired kunai at Kakashi and Tenten.

They managed to avoid the trap in their own respective ways, Kakashi smoother than Tenten. She moved in the direction of the bodies and jostled one, kicking it onto its side to reveal an explosive tag on its back that was burning down.

Each one of the corpses had an explosive tag hidden on their unseen sides, triggered by the first trap going off. Naruto immediately tried to break the door closest to him down, and failed. Shino did the same with the sole window in the residence and failed as well.

Kakashi immediately rolled through hand-seals to try and activate his jutsu that would allow them all a quick tunneling escape, but when he rested his hand on the ground he couldn't help but laugh hopelessly at their predicament, "Well… whatever's underneath this floor, it isn't earth."

Someone prepared that little house well. Too well for a quickly traveling pursuit squad to set to cover their tracks, and far too well for a civilian to have done. A ninja did this, and the ninja had been a resident as well.

XxX

The little cottage in the clearing exploded in a massive fireball that more or less assured the demise of anything inside. What a waste of such a nice little house, but the moment those first assassins came, the owner knew that it would only be just the beginning.

Luckily she had been prepared to cut and run for quite some time after the nasty bit of business with Kakuzu, but that didn't make it any more convenient. A lot of her stuff was in that house.

The owner happened to be a strikingly-figured young woman with pupil-free brown eyes and purple hair tied in a short, spiky ponytail. She wore a sleeveless mesh armor bodysuit that ran down to her thighs, mesh armbands, a tan miniskirt with a dark blue belt, and sandals with knee-length shin-guards.

"That took long enough," The young woman groused to herself as she began to leave after hearing her home explode. As much of an problem it was, she felt that it had to be done if she really wanted to try and make herself disappear, "I've been waiting three goddamn days for any stragglers so I could trigger that trap."

Before she could leave however, she found that she was completely unable to move forward any longer. She could still move and walk, but it was as if an invisible barrier impeded her path.

"What the hell?" Looking down, she saw an array beneath her feet, as well as a large amount of insects crawling on the ground coming toward her, 'How'd they find me that quickly after the trap went off? I'd just triggered it.'

"Got her Kakashi!" Naruto shouted from where he'd concealed himself with a camouflage sheet against a tree. Damn kid, the woman figured that he was the source of the barrier seal underneath her. And then there was the girl in the tree dangling several deadly weapons over her head with chakra threads, "Tenten and Shino have her covered! And by the way Shino, I didn't need to know that that was where your bugs came from."

From the shadows of the forest, Kakashi walked out with his hands in his pockets. As he came closer to the woman, the insects on the ground cleared apart to open a path for him. That answered the question of just who it was that had captured her.

"Hatake Kakashi," The kunoichi said dryly upon seeing the name ninja of the group, "…Fuck me." She said in exasperation.

"Hmm, well let's just see where this goes first shall we?" The girl snapped her teeth at him sarcastically in response, "Jiraiya-sama contact never said that the banker's surviving employee was a kunoichi," It made sense though. Bankers did were the types that needed bodyguards, "Honestly, we were expecting an accountant or something along those lines."

"So were the guys inside," Said the woman, with a rather pleased, vaguely bloodthirsty smile and a husky chuckle.

"We didn't see that trap coming at all," Tenten admitted from her vantage point in her tree, "Poor Shino's Insect Clone." Because that thing got annihilated.

"And that's why teaching Tenten Kage Bunshin no Jutsu was a great idea, so that we don't have to do our own recon," Naruto remarked, still keeping his hand planted on the ground to trap Anko in his clan's fuuinjutsu, "It's also why I'm your hero for the month _Tenten_," Naruto emphasized intently,

Tenten stuck her tongue out in response since it wouldn't have been smart to do something that would give their kunoichi captive an opening to escape, "I've barely got enough chakra to make even one, so it's not _that_ useful to me. Teach me a jutsu I can spam like you and then maybe you'll be my hero."

Three kids and a one-eyed babysitter. That was who had captured her. She almost hoped that they'd kill her, because she didn't think she'd ever live down being caught by a child's jutsu. In her opinion that was worse than having the four guys that tried to storm her house abduct her and squeeze her for information on the whereabouts of Kakuzu's money.

Actually no, she took that line of thinking back, because if those rubes had been strong enough to do anything other than die graphically they seemed like the types to take certain liberties with her body because she was a woman. On second thought this was better.

It was far from the ideal predicament, but then again the ideal predicament for her would have involved never running up against anyone like Kakuzu in the first place. That was a mug's game, especially for a freelance ninja.

"Now let's take it easy," Kakashi said, trying to keep things between them civil. As civil as things could be after their clones had all suffered horrible deaths, and they'd trapped her in return, "We have reason to believe that you can get us to Kakuzu's reserve. Would I be wrong about that Miss…?"

"Anko," The woman answered for him, crossing her arms over her rather bountiful chest, "And what if I did? I was paid extra to my bodyguard gig to do it, and then Kakuzu came along and slaughtered my boss and everybody that worked for him when he realized I'd been there."

Her employer had been a rather slimy sort, but he paid her well and had never been dumb enough to proposition her, or grab at her breasts or butt, so she could deal with him. His practices weren't always on the up-and-up, and the thought of having the plus of knowing where Kakuzu's rumored piles and piles of riches were was simply too alluring to let go.

That man wound up paying for it, along with the rest of his workers. Anko did as well to an extent, but less than any of them.

"So why didn't he kill you?"

Rubbing at a phantom pain where her left kidney was meant to be situated Anko grumbled, "It wasn't for lack of trying, I'll tell you that. I only tried to fight him because I had to. I had a contract. I gave my word to fight for my boss to the finish, guaranteed, but… well if you hear some of the legends I'm sure you can guess how well I did."

It had been the worst three weeks of her life thus far she'd wager to say, and she had been lain up healing for half of it. The other half had been spent ducking scouts from clans that wanted what she knew, and none of them were willing to take no for an answer, nor were they willing to actually pay her what she felt the info was worth.

"He dealt with you before he flew into one of his blind rages didn't he?" Kakashi asked, getting a stiff nod in return. He figured as much. If Kakuzu had fought Anko after he'd already taken to the limits of his temper there might not have been enough left of her to obtain the info on the money pit from.

"One hit. That was all it took," Anko let out a bitter laugh just from remembering it, "Can you believe that? And I thought I was good."

"Well how would you like to get some payback?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Sort of," Kakashi said with a shrug, "I'll be honest since it doesn't matter. I was going to mess with your head and make you show us what you knew, but since you're a kunoichi you'd be fighting it the entire time and it would be a boatload of trouble. So with that in mind, how about a split?"

A split? He was the first person to actually offer any sort of split with her. Everyone else that tried to be nice about it were only willing to shell out a pittance in return for her help, and when she turned down their paltry terms they took to using force.

Kakashi had just admitted that he was willing to use force as well, but he'd offered to actually split it with her. Was he lying though? She couldn't tell, 'Well if he is lying about the split, I'm pretty sure that I'll know by the time we get to where we're going.'

She didn't have a chance against Kakuzu, so she wouldn't be turning on him. But if he was going to double-cross her she could do the same by setting the greedy powerhouse on Kakashi and his gaggle of runts. Even if Kakashi could deal with him, he couldn't do it while protecting kids… unless they were miniature meat shields.

That could work, and it wasn't as if she had anything better going for her. It was either team up, or keep running around until she got unlucky enough to wind up with an Inuzuka on her heels. Then she'd never get away.

"…I'll give it a try Cyclops," Anko said, eyeing Kakashi and the kids warily, "But I'll just say that tough guys like you who think they can screw me over-," She paused long enough to suddenly snatch one of the weapons hanging over her head from the chakra strings and throw it at Naruto, hitting the ground right in front of his kneeling position and jolting him out of his jutsu, "-Usually wind up bleeding out in a ditch somewhere. Just some friendly advice."

This woman didn't seem to be very friendly.

"Noted," Kakashi chirped pleasantly, "But please don't make a habit of threatening any of my kids to make a point, or I'll probably have to skullfuck you to make mine," Naruto and Tenten's jaws dropped in horror at the very drastic and vulgar threat, while Shino's brow twitched, "…Just some friendly advice."

The thing about it was that they couldn't really tell if Kakashi was kidding or not. On one hand, Kakashi routinely used sarcasm and a never changing cadence of speaking to mask obvious jokes, but on the other hand he had been completely prepared to kidnap and alter the mind of a regular civilian beforehand. With that in mind, they weren't sure what he would do. He might not do something as drastic and as unpleasant as what he had alluded to, but they felt that there was a major chance of him doling out a disproportionate amount of retribution.

Anko didn't flinch however, smiling predatorily at the warning. So this really was Copy Ninja Kakashi after all? That was certainly interesting, "Oh, I get the feeling that this is going to be a very mutually beneficial relationship."

XxX

(Elsewhere – Northern Hi no Kuni Borderlands – Mountainside Pass)

Well, a smaller clan was going to be getting some work soon to clean the mountain road, because a battle-related rockslide had blocked the path. No commerce would be going that way for a little while.

Nawaki sighed while holding a glowing yellow sword in his hand, a weapon that surged, popped, and crackled with electricity with every slight wave through the air. Not the stealthiest weapon, but when things got nasty, he wouldn't have preferred a better tool in his hands.

His granduncle's Raijin no Ken (Sword of the Thunder God) was his weapon of choice, no matter how many treasures he found and no matter how legendary they were in theory. His family's trusty blade had carried him through hard times since he was a young boy when he'd been gifted with it. It had served him well over the years in his multiple expeditions, and it had served him well once again.

"I know whose grave I'm praying by when I get home." Nawaki said to himself under his breath as he took in the damage that he'd caused.

Looking around himself with a frown, Nawaki shook his head at the slew of Uchiha Clan members that he had killed in battle. It had been an ambush that had failed. They had clearly gotten wind that he was sniffing around the region, and with the buzz that had gone around since Kakuzu had massacred that banker's entire office staff it was obvious to anyone that knew he was there what he was looking for.

These hadn't been the first ninjas he'd run into either, but they were the first he'd come across from the Uchiha Clan. That couldn't bode well. Where there was one there was always more, and when one died in battle you could count on three more willing to come for your head without surcease.

"They can all look for the survivor of the massacre and kill each other looking for her," Nawaki said to himself, forcing the glowing electric blade of his sword to vanish back into the hilt, "I don't need to run that rat race. I can track Kakuzu without it now that I've got a general idea of where to find him."

He wasn't called 'The Hunter' just because he found lost treasures of the ninja world. He could find anything or anyone if you gave him the slightest general direction of where to go. Since Kakuzu's base of operations had finally been narrowed down to the northern border areas of Hi no Kuni due to his latest temper-tantrum, he might as well have popped a smoke signal around his hiding place, because it wasn't as if Nawaki needed any other blatant clues to find him any longer.

"Tsunade's going to kill me if I take too long with this," Nawaki said to himself, checking over the downed ninjas in the area. Some were dead, others would live, but none of them would be getting in his way again. That had been handled, and now it was time to move along. Placing his sword hilt back at his belt, he cracked his neck and took off into the woods, "Ah, she'll love me when I come back with more money than she's ever seen before."

There were patterns of movement to Kakuzu's mission acceptances around the area over the years, and the runners that Nawaki had dispatched ahead of himself only had the job of finding them for him. They had been very thorough, and had narrowed it down to one place with an 81% probability of success.

What he didn't know however was that while he'd defeated the attacking group, that hadn't been the full scope of the squad sent to deal with him.

The Uchiha Clan used runners as well however, and one had been sent to the northern post the moment that the squad had known that Senju Nawaki would be heading into their ambush. There was only one Uchiha that could cover the amount of ground needed to keep up on the trail of Nawaki before he reached Kakuzu's riches.

Very few knew how Uchiha Obito moved so quickly across the, but he got results and he worked efficiently. He was also the only person within reach that they had who could take on the grandson of Senju Hashirama.

After all, he hadn't been touched in battle in eight years.

XxX

(Some Time Later – Uzu no Kuni – Backcountry Forests)

The quietest nation of them all in the Elemental Nations, Uzu no Kuni was the most peaceful not only in regards to the lack of warfare that touched their lands due to their small island geography, but due to the outright tranquility of their deep forests.

There weren't patrols, there were outposts with at least one sensor capable of using Mind's Eye of the Kagura at each location. The best users could feel disturbances of chakra across the entire island. Human chakra.

Things that traveled far underground and animals were a bit harder to pin down.

Animals like toads. Even specially summoned Diving Toads, meant to be used for Gamagakure no Jutsu (Hiding in a Toad Jutsu).

Slowly surfacing in a tranquil, running river, a moderately-sized green toad swam its way to the riverbank and opened its mouth only for a full grown man to slowly climb out. Despite the impossible special parameters of this feat, there was no discomfort to the creature, or to the man himself.

"Ugh," Jiraiya said upon exiting his amphibious assistant, "It's times like this when I don't wonder why Minato didn't try to specialize in too many toad techniques," He regarded the toad that had chosen to go back into the water as it stared at him, "Thanks a lot. You're going to want to get as far away from me as you can though, because in thirty minutes I'll have half of the Uzumaki Clan's sensors sniffing up my ass."

The toad didn't need to be told twice, dismissing itself in a puff of smoke to return to its home elsewhere.

Even though it couldn't speak it could understand just fine, and it understood full well that it didn't want any part of what was about to happen. It was an infiltration-only kind of summon. Battle wasn't its forte in the least.

"Alright, let's get this underway," Jiraiya said before starting off in the direction of the Uzumaki Clan village, stashing a Hiraishin kunai on the inside of his vest, "…When I drop this thing you'd better be ready to move fast Minato."

The middle-aged shinobi knew that he didn't have to say anything of the sort to Minato's face. Sitting across the small stretch of ocean separating Hi no Kuni's coast from Uzu no Kuni, he was chomping at the bit to feel the pull on his chakra that called out to him.

When Jiraiya dropped that knife, Minato was going to do something that was ten years overdue.

He was going to get the woman he loved back, and anyone that got in the way even after Jiraiya drew the lion's share of the attention away was going to quickly find out that 'in the way' was not the place to be.

* * *

Omake: New Friends 2 (Hi no Kuni)

For the time being, Naruto and Tenten had a new partner. He wasn't particularly the most forthcoming or expressive, and he had a rather chilly demeanor about him, but Aburame Shino wasn't necessarily a bad person. He was just a little odd.

Naruto didn't mind odd. Even when the odd was Shino's brand of odd, in all of the forms that it came in, both personality-wise and in the concentration of his ninjutsu. It was definitely a shock to get used to when he found out where the insects for Shino's jutsu came from, but he himself was a boy who was trying to be friends with a gigantic chakra fox that slept inside of his body and made acerbic comments on the things that happened to him.

In other words, he was somewhat accustomed to strange, so it didn't take long for him to pass it off and move on to the next thing, as in they had a new teammate. Hooray.

Therefore, in his head he proceeded to the next thing on his mental docket.

I.e., the crazy purple-haired lady that kept on dancing the dance of mistrust and barely suppressed killing intent and sexual tension with Kakashi for the last day and a half. From their interactions up until that point, he was sure that she was more than likely a bad person.

Not to say that Naruto knew what the sexual tension was, because he didn't. He simply knew that there was something extra between Kakashi and Anko, and it was more than practiced indifference and shoddily veiled loathing… respectively… because Kakashi just didn't care about the opinion of others.

Tenten was less acclimated to the oddities of ninja life, so for her to find out exactly how the Aburame Clan garnered their partnership with their special bugs, it was an eye-opener.

Sitting around the place where the motley crew was set to make camp for the night, Tenten simply couldn't stop staring across the site at Shino, unable to even blink, "So… you have bugs moving around inside of you? Like, all the time?"

"Yes," Shino confirmed with a nod, "My body was offered as a hive to my special kikaichu insects, and I allow them to feed on my chakra in exchange for their complete loyalty.

"Wow. What's that like?"

"I couldn't tell you. Why you ask? Because I have never been without them. They are a part of me."

*POW!*

"Damn it that hurts!" Naruto shouted, shaking out his hand as pieces of the rubber ball he'd been trying for some time to pop exploded in his hand, "How many of those stupid things do I have to blow up? Can I just learn the rest of the jutsu now?"

"You know how Kakashi is about all of the 'look underneath the underneath' stuff," Tenten said, resting her cheek in her hand, "He probably wants you to figure it out. This _is_ supposed to take three years anyway isn't it?"

Naruto snorted and blew on his stinging right hand, "Yeah, it took the old man three years to come up with the jutsu from scratch and put it together right. That doesn't mean it takes three years for someone else to learn."

"That actually seems like logical reasoning," Shino chimed in offhandedly, "Well done Uzumaki-san."

"Thanks," Naruto said before frowning in the bug-user's direction, a question burning in his mind, "Why do all of your compliments to me sound backhanded?"

"Shut UP brat!" Anko shouted from inside of her tent, having decided to turn in the second camp was made, "I'm the walking wounded here and I'm leading you and your scarecrow babysitter to the guy that put me in this state! Can I _please_ get at least six hours of sleep before we get up and start this all over again tomorrow?"

Naruto did close his mouth… for all of five seconds. He really did try to let it go, but he just couldn't leave it at that, "Okay but if tomorrow morning you wake up in a bundle, tied to a raft, floating in the middle of the lake, just remember everything that happened thirty seconds ago."

"And when you wake up tomorrow morning buried up to your neck in the dirt right by a hill of imperial fire ants with your head slathered in chocolate, just remember that I don't like kids and killing you means nothing to me. I will drown you like a kitten in a burlap sack."

This was what Kakashi returned to, having caught enough fish to tide everyone present over. It was just a matter of cooking them now, and the kids had already started the fire while Shino's bugs and Naruto's clones guarded the area.

"Anko, Anko, Anko, don't be so cranky," Kakashi chided, handing the fish off to Tenten and Naruto so that they could begin preparing them to be cooked, "Remember what I told you? If you drown any of my kids as a stress-reliever, well I just can't tell you what I might do in return. Just relax and rest, because you _are_ still injured and I'd like you to be healthy."

"He started it."

Was she pouting? Either way, Kakashi didn't care.

"No, he didn't start it. I was listening."

Anko jostled grumpily in the sleeping roll inside of her tent and intentionally muttered loud enough to be heard, "…Leprechaun's gonna fuck you up at midnight."

Alright, that was a new one. He'd never heard that one before, "What?"

"No~thing!"

* * *

Major Clan Information

Aburame Clan  
Leader: Aburame Shibi

**Population: 1.5/5  
Military Strength: 2.5/5  
Economy: 2/5  
Notable Traits: Members live in symbiosis with insects inside of their bodies and specialize in using them as weapons in combat. Tend to keep much of their bodies and their eyes covered. Their ninjutsu is usually performed without hand-seals. Potentially powerful trackers and scouts. Powerful stealth and espionage skills. Calm, collected ninjas with reputations as an emotionless, solitary people by nature.  
Area of Operations: Focus ranges across the forested northwestern portion of Hi no Kuni, bordering with other nations.**

* * *

**And that's what I've got for you. I hope you enjoyed, and if you didn't… meh. **

**Okay, so here, about Minato not marking Naruto directly before they separated for the time being, because I figure that sooner or later it's only a matter of time before someone's going to throw a bitch-fit over it and I want to be proactive and nip explaining my viewpoint in the bud. This is what happens when authors of the source material are vague about their shit; they leave certain parts of things open for interpretation.**

**In the series, Minato has only marked three people directly that we know of: Kushina, Obito, and some random Iwa ninja he killed during Kakashi Gaiden. In the last one, he only marked the guy's sandal, which is an article of clothing, which you can take off and destroy. Since the mark never goes away I'm pretty sure he's got to embed that damn mark into things, which probably isn't the most pleasant thing, so that's probably why he just gave Kakashi a Hiraishin kunai instead of making sure his entire genin squad was marked up.**

**When he had the mark on Kushina he mixed it in with her seal. When he put it on Obito he planted a Rasengan firmly up his ass first. Therefore, the theory I ran with was that he has to nail someone with some serious scarring kind of force if he wants to keep that damn thing on an actual person's body, like a brand or a stamp. It's why I had him put it on Hidan in the midst of shivving him like it was an episode of Oz. And even if it wasn't something like that and it was actually gentle, could you imagine how intrusive having that on you would be, especially as his kid? You couldn't do anything because watch out, Minato could pop up right in front of you anytime. **

**It'd be like being in some toned down version of '1984' by George Orwell, only with Minato potentially showing up at, shall we say inopportune moments, instead of the constant vigilant monitoring of your every action for obedience. God, even then that'd still be horrible. Could you imagine over the years some of the personal stuff he could teleport into to prevent, and wind up stumbling into by accident? Ugh, you'd never feel like you had any privacy.**

**If you haven't figured it out by now, I'm kind of a sick person for thinking this hard about a vaguely explained fictional technique (You should see me argue about testable things, such as the merits of actual grappling knowledge in street fights). **

**Anyway, I got way off-track here. What I'm interpreting is that it's not the kind of thing you put on someone just because you can, otherwise Minato and even the Hokage Guard Platoon would have had them on everybody and everything somewhat relevant, which with the proper excuse could be anything. That's the theory I'm using to make the jutsu a little less broken.**

**By the way, for all the kids out there. **_**1984**_** = bleak-ass book. Fuck **_**Animal**__**Farm**_** as far as Orwell's nihilistic literature goes. If you want to kill your buzz for the next two weeks plus, read **_**1984**_** to put that good sneer on your face that you can't shake off.**

**Man, that got off-topic didn't it?**

**Anyway, with my reading public service announcement of the day over with and done, Kenchi out.**


End file.
